Ubuntu? Personal and non-Geeky?

‘We positioned Ubuntu as a version of Linux that was personal and non-technical’ 
Mark Shuttleworth, Founder, Canonical and Ubuntu Linux on why he thinks Ubuntu will succeed on the desktop, where other equally famed competitors have failed
Having earned the distinction of becoming the first African to take a flight into space, Mark Shuttleworth undertook a voyage into another unchartered territory. He started the Ubuntu Linux project, with a goal to creating a high-quality desktop and server OS. ‘Ubuntu’—named after an African word which means ‘humanity to others’—has since then become the most popular GNU/Linux distribution. Ubuntu Linux has been positioned as a platform for the masses rather than being confined to the specialists.
Mark Shuttleworth, Founder, Canonical and Ubuntu Linux shared his thoughts with Srikanth RP on the increasing significance of open source, the roadmap for the cloud and why he thinks Ubuntu will succeed on the desktop, where other equally famed competitors have failed.
From an era when open source faced a lot of antagonism, now even competitors are opening up their code. How do you see this shift in terms of the future of IT?
I have no doubt in my mind that open source represents the future of the software industry. This can be clearly seen from the number of customer engagements involving Linux, and from the backing of huge companies such as IBM and Oracle. Even Microsoft today has backed away from its earlier rigid stance. The driver is clearly the success of open source. Today, end-user companies are skeptical of those companies that suggest that open source does not encourage innovation.


Unlike other Linux distributions, Ubuntu has managed to achieve a significant presence on the desktop. What have you done differently?
While Linux as a community has done extremely well in the server and data center space, the real challenge lies in taking Linux to the desktop. When we started the Ubuntu project, we quickly realized that distribution only plays a limited role in the success of the platform.
We focused on substantially improving the experience of the Linux desktop by making it more visually appealing and easy to use. We positioned Ubuntu as a version of Linux that was personal and non-technical. In a way, we have been pioneers in bringing the benefits of Linux to a larger audience. The results—as tracked by independent websites—show that Ubuntu has been steadily increasing in popularity over the past five years.
While Ubuntu is one of the most successful products in the desktop Linux space, it still has a long way to go before it can even think of upsetting the apple cart of a dominant vendor such as Microsoft. Why do you think Ubuntu will succeed (in the long run) where other equally strong competitors have failed?
With our platform, we believe we have significant opportunities to play on the server, cloud and the desktop space. By putting the user at the heart of our design, we have significantly enhanced the user experience.
For example, we have taken initiatives such as the innovative ‘100 Paper Cuts’ initiative organized with the Ubuntu Community which allowed users to nominate minor annoyances that impacted their enjoyment of the platform.
Till date, over 50 fixes have been committed. Industry leaders such as Dell have partnered with us to put Ubuntu on some of their desktop and laptop models. And evidence suggests that the percentage of users that do not replace Ubuntu on the device is growing. This is a time of great change in the IT industry, and we believe that we are in a
position to surprise established players.
How is Ubuntu performing on the cloud landscape?
On Amazon EC2—which is the dominant public cloud offering—Ubuntu is the Number One base OS for organizations building workloads to deploy in the cloud. With our enterprise cloud offering the same APIs as Amazon EC2, you can build your applications to run on either platform.
This means that applications that run on your private cloud can be seamlessly put into the public Amazon cloud, and vice versa. You can even configure the system to ensure that overloaded applications on a private cloud can expand to use resources from the public cloud. We are focused on simplifying user experience—be it the
desktop or the cloud.

CHS students trained with FOSS as alternatives

Engaging Students with FOSS.

TESDA has recently given 50 scholarship slots in computer hardware servicing NC II to our school, the Asian Academy of Business and Computers. This was part of the 175 recently given slots of Pangulong Gloria Scholarships courtesy of TESDA.

Previously, we held an assessemnt on PC operations NC II around October of last year, we used open office and mozzila firefox as part of the test pakage for our students. Most of them (90 %) had passed the assessment and were declared “competent” (TESDA uses the term COMPETENT instead of passing).

Last Month (April) we also held assessments for our students in Computer Hardware servicing NC II every weekend. 94% (67 students) were declared competent in this category.

Currently our 2 classes of Computer Hardware servicing NC II are being trained to be both familiar with proprietary and FOSS software.

Touching on the merits of FOSS,most students were surprised how come LINUX and other FOSS Operating systems never have viruses.

Running on their third to fourth week, most students are still having their doubts as to the workability of linux. Perhaps after they have done installing and maintaing the computers they will have as projects.. they may realize that indeed Linux and other FOSS products are good technical alternatives to proprietary software.

Our trainors, linux Guru Brian De Vivar and hardware guy John Lopez are both doing their stuff in training these students to learn to use better alternatives like Ubuntu Linux and Mandriva Linux.

Unlike other Computer Hardware servicing students from other schools, our graduates will be both familiar with proprietary and FOSS.

G.ho.st personal impressions

I've recently tried G.ho.st, a new virtual PC/Operating system thats web based. You can open it from a browser and youll have lots of features that you will definitely like.

Imagine having your own virtual PC online that you can use and utilize, whose hard disk space increases as you invite others to join you in using G.ho.st.

I recently was visited by Gene Morada, the Philippine representative of G.ho.st and he introduced me to its features, I like the idea of Cloud computing specially when majority of my students com from class CD and E families, imagine what huge amount of storage space my students can have as well as a virtual desktop PC. Im a google fan, dedicated somewhat, but seiing its features, I feel like combining the usage of Google and G.ho.st and see how big my online virtual desktop space can get.

Ive arranged with our IT guy Sir Bryan to have Gene have a seminar on G.ho.st here in school for our students, and i feel like we have a lot of projects and collaboration to do eventually later.

Eventually i hope that G.ho.st would sponsor educational collaborational tools on their desktop so that we can use them to teach programming to our students.

to know more about G.host please click here

For a view of the screen shots of the G.ho.st OS plse click here.

Putting Blender on the drawing table

Recently... we had started joint project with GMA kapuso Foundation to train 50 out of school youths in Visual Graphics and 3d animation .

Of course one of the aims of that project was to make available open source tools and show that indeed they are ready for the market.

Another very important reason we felt was that we wanted to prove that we can turn a person with zero knowledge in computer and graphics into a functional person ready for employment. And what more better opportunity it was to offer people a fighting chance to get employment as a graphics artist.

And offerring a scholarship for 50 people who needed it most was what our partner GMA kapuso foundation felt could better serve a higher purpose and empower a lot of our constituents.

One significant thing was.. we were already previously offering blender both as part of our regular Graphics and design as well as Multimedia Application curricular instruction. Thus, our lead animation instructor, Sir Dennis Jorolan...was already experienced with dealing with the proprietary and open source tools in 3d animation. being an open source advocate himself... he welcomed the idea.

We wanted very much to put GIMP, as well as KINO, Jahshaka, DIA as well as other opne source tools on the drawing board as well; as our graphics people were very much into the idea... we are hoping that after our first batch of KASI (Kapuso-AABC Scholarship Initiative) scholars; we could prove that indeed open source tools are as good as proprietary tools.

Of course, one cannot but acknowledge the foresight of the foundations executive director, Sir Nonie dela Fuente who also encouraged and welcomed the idea.

So, to the soon to be scholars, to the men and women behind the project.... good luck.....

What weve done so far?

Foss in AABC has a long way to go.

From starting in Open Office, mozilla firefox, GIMP, Blender and Foxit, AABC has gone quite some distance in trying to go .

Since we've installed Linux on our classrooms,faculty room and administrative offices Ubuntu (versions 6.10,7.04 and 8.04) and Ubuntustudio (multimedia room). And so far our students are adjusting relatively well.

We were quite lucky that we have open source buffs in our IT department. Sir Dennis Jorolan, our animation guru and Sir Brian de Vivar , our PhPMySQL guru.

Our teachers also have been undergoing in house trainings in open office, Google Docs (for document collaboration among students and faculty , Blogger (for faculty who would post lectures and advnace assignments). Though blogging among teachers still has to be reminded (of which takes time).

Were still trying to master Open base and hopefully well also be able to implement that. weve been actively trying to put FOSSpective into our students.

Among the significant things we think we were able to do outside of our regular students was our short courses among them the introduction of Blender as a 3d animation tool, introducing Open source tools in our COffice Shipboard office productivity course for seafarers and our webdesign courses.


This is just the start of our journey. We hope to do more