Ask Ubuntu Founder (And Astronaut) Mark Shuttleworth

Mark Shuttleworth isn't one to rest on his laurels. Founder of Thawte Consulting, Shuttleworth has used the wealth generated by Thawte's 1995 sale to Verisign to start a venture capital firm, to further South African science education (and education in general) with his eponymous foundation, to push for the acceptance of open source software in South Africa, and to become the first citizen of an African country to visit space with his 2002 flight to the International Space Station aboard the Russian Soyuz shuttle -- basically, to live life as a Neal Stephenson hero might. His latest project is Ubuntu Linux, a Debian-based distribution designed for ease of use, extensive language support, and thorough cooperation with the larger Debian organization. Mark's agreed to answer questions from Slashdot readers about these projects -- Ubuntu seems to be chief on his mind -- so please add your questions below, one per post (but as many questions as you'd like). We'll forward 10-12 of the best to Mark for his answers, and post them verbatim as soon as they're ready.

Re:Dear Mark

[rsidd]

Because Debian gives you a choice of "unstable" and "outdated software"? (I use "unstable" quite happily but I can see it would make some people nervous. There's a market for a stable but cutting-edge distribution.) Because "contributing to Debian" means a long, painful "democratic" voting process? Because Debian has a sucky installer and suckier system-management tools?

Have you used Ubuntu or any of the other Debian clones? You'd know the difference.

Re:Africa & the world economy

[Anonymous Coward]

It also isn't the total truth that alot of Americans think Africa is poor or third world. Infact, most Americans don't think at all, let alone about poor Africa.

Why Ubuntu?

[smcavoy]

Why not pour resources into user Linux, or Debian directly? Does the world need another Debian based distro.

Re:Africa & the world economy

[aldoman]

Sadly, any hope Africa had in becoming a real 'developing' continent, is over thanks to AIDS. Egypt, Tunisia and some other northern countries might 'survive', but AIDS is basically like a nuke to any dreams that sub-saharan Africa has/had.

There is no way that an economy can cope with 40% of it's population (and around 60-75% of it's real labour force) being severely incapacitated, or dead. Think 40% is a bit high? It's not. Botswana will have reached that level by the end of this year or certainly next year. The really tragic thing is that before AIDS was widespread, Botswana was a jewel in Africa - one of the best growing economies.

And before you tell me that generic drugs are the solution, it's not. The current best solution to AIDS is to give people a cocktail of drugs, and keep on hoping that new ones get invented that the virus is not immune to. Sadly, that a) requires huge investment from the drugs companies, which they won't bother with if they are forced to give away all their R&D, and b) there is probably no way that even with generic drugs most people could afford them, especially now that all the 'easy to manufacture' combinations have been made and now it requires advanced production facilities, which are too expensive.

Africa is also a heavily divided continent, with the spread of Islam coming in through the north. Northern Africa is a very different place to central or southern Africa.