<div dir="ltr"><div><div>Yeah, their business model is a little unclear.<br>><br>> Q: how do you make a small fortune in the Linux distro<br>> business?<br>><br>> A: start with a large fortune.<br>
<br><span style="color:rgb(11,83,148)">I believe Mark Shuttleworth earned his fortune the hard way, he founded Thawte in 1995, which specialised in digital certificates and Internet security and then sold it to VeriSign in December 1999, earning R 3.5 billion (about US$ 575 million at the time). <b><i>Thawte was originally run from <span class=""></span>Shuttleworth's<span class=""></span> parents' garage<br>
</i></b><br>In September 2000, Shuttleworth formed HBD Venture Capital (Here be Dragons), a business incubator and venture capital provider. In March 2004 he formed Canonical Ltd., for the promotion and commercial support of free software projects, especially the Ubuntu operating system. In December 2009, Shuttleworth stepped down as the CEO of Canonical, Ltd<br>
<br>Citation: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth</a></span><br><br>><br>> A really tough problem. ( <span style="color:rgb(11,83,148)">Any problem has a solution ? </span>)<br>
<br>> | that allows them to<br>> | keep supporting FOSS that being said it should not be at the price of<br>> | losing ones identity is all am saying ?<br>><br>> The support for FOSS from Canonical is a little mixed. Ubuntu is<br>
> great as a poster child distro. They've made Linux more approachable.<br>> But their support of the rest of FOSS has been pretty minor or even<br>> disruptive.<br>><span style="color:rgb(11,83,148)"><br>
</span></div><span style="color:rgb(11,83,148)">Yes they did make Linux more user friendly to the average non-technical home user. I would not be typing this right now if it was not for Ubuntu Karmic but with recent releases their</span> <span style="color:rgb(11,83,148)">sending local Ubuntu Unity Dash searches to Canonical servers by default and Firefox tracking and geo-location though I understand why from a business sense "I" am not comfortable with.</span><br>
<br></div><span style="color:rgb(11,83,148)">The current CEO of Cannonical Jane Silber according to launchpad is familiar with Catalan, Cherokee, Chinese (Simplified), French, Malay, Sanskrit, Zulu. Some one who has this capacity and ability I feel will also have the integrity and transparency to support the community needs and concerns but then as a CEO one has a mandate and at times conflicts of interest may arise ? So as usual the $.$$ and cents win ! <br>
<br>I still have faith though and hopefully we will have less intrusive behavior in the next releases. </span><br><h2 id="yui_3_10_3_1_1386306937944_55"></h2><div><br><div>> ================<br>><br>> Your attempt to create an event is great.<br>
><br>> Is there any particular reason that being exclusively Ubuntu makes it<br>> better?<br><br></div><div><span style="color:rgb(11,83,148)">We have one hour and that is insufficient to do justice to all flavors of Linux out there in the wild such as Slackware, Free BSD, Mandrake, Backtrack etc. I don't think a given distro is better than another but over time and use we tend to bond with a particular distro and certain distro specific features and functionalities where we are thoroughly familiar with the quirks ? <br>
<br>Anyone is most welcome to share experiences with distros that may not be Ubuntu, we are inclusive and we try to support ! But please bear in mind all we have is the ONE hour to get everything done :-)</span><br></div>
<div>><br>> Certainly TLUG/GTALUG could use new initiatives. By that, I don't<br>> mean that the old ones have run their course, but that innovation is a<br>> Good Thing.<br>><br>> Having new things in different parts of the city from downtown might<br>
> activate a new crowd (however good coffee and transit might suffer<br>> from that migration).<br>><br><span style="color:rgb(11,83,148)">Good kofee can and will be arranged :-) and migration I hear tell is much easier after a few beers !</span><br>
<br>> None of this is a request, only some possible ideas. Certainly not<br>> intended to change what's already half-organized.<br><br></div><div><span style="color:rgb(11,83,148)">Ideas are always most welcome and where ever possible will be included and implemented. I like to think of this as disruptive construction. remember when skype was taken over by big blue ? And we thought oh-boy there go the free calls ? What happened ? The community is what happened and now we have Viber, Whatsapp and so many others :-)</span><br>
</div><div><br>> --<br>> The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: <a href="http://gtalug.org/">http://gtalug.org/</a><br>> TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns<br>> How to UNSUBSCRIBE: <a href="http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists">http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists</a><br>
<br><br><br><br>-- <br>Aruna Hewapathirane<br>Consultant/Trainer<br>Phone : 647-709-9269<br>Website: Open Source Solutions<br></div></div></div>