Mark Shuttleworth Interview: Open source is the business

R.A. Hettinga rah at shipwright.com
Tue Nov 9 16:47:08 PST 2004


<http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=Insight-TenQuestions&ao=125244>  

Mail and Guardian Online:

Wednesday, November 10, 2004, 2:39
Africa's first online newspaper est. 1994


 TEN QUESTIONS
Open source is the business



09 November 2004 14:33
Mark Shuttleworth gives a thumbs up for Africa and open source software.
(Photograph: Mikhail Grachyev, AFP)
Open-source software: what difference will it make to my life?

If you're new to computers, then open source is a whole new universe
waiting to be discovered, at no real cost. Almost every kind of application
is freely available as open-source software -- from business applications
such as word processors, presentation software and spreadsheets to
specialist tools such as programming languages and databases.

 Open source is the best way for a student or child to discover the world
of the computer, because there is no limit or restriction on your ability
to learn how the software works, since it comes with full source code.

 So, for new computer users, open source is "the business". If you're in
the software industry, then open source is interesting because all
indications are that it will come to be the default on the desktop, just as
it has come to dominate the server software scene.


Why should I change from Windows, Microsoft Word or Internet Explorer to
open-source products such as Linux and the likes?

If what you have works for you, then I would not recommend changing. If,
however, you are considering an upgrade or buying new computers, then open
source is certainly worth considering.

 If you need to run Windows, then there is a lot of open-source software
for Windows too -- you don't have to switch to a Linux-based operating
system such as Ubuntu to get the benefits of open source. For example, on
my Windows PC I don't have Microsoft Office, I use OpenOffice from
www.openoffice.org, which is freely available and has a word processor,
spreadsheet and presentation package that are compatible with Microsoft
Office.

 I also use the Firefox web browser and Thunderbird e-mail software, from
www.mozilla.org, which have had very few, if any, virus attacks against
them.

 In general, open-source software is cheaper to acquire and manage,
improves faster, has better support for internationalisation and is more
secure than the older proprietary alternatives.


If open source takes hold, what will our desktops/computers look like in 10
years' time?

Hopefully they'll look pretty familiar! Open-source software looks just
like older proprietary software, it's just produced and licensed freely.
Also, it tends to be easier to get different pieces of open-source software
to talk to one another, because the people who produce it have an interest
in making collaboration happen and using open standards rather than locking
you into their software.

 A big area of innovation in open source is collaborative work, allowing
you to work on a document simultaneously with other people, and I think
this sort of open-source innovation will be the main driver of new products
and concepts in the information technology industry over the next 10 years.


As much as people moan about Microsoft, aren't Microsoft products superior
and easier to use than many open-source programmes available today?

Certainly not. Of course, it depends on the application. For example, the
open-source Apache web server is generally considered to be much better
than any web-server software from Microsoft, and as a result, Apache is the
most widely used web-server software on the internet.

In desktop office applications, I think Microsoft still has an edge, but
the gap is narrowing so fast and innovation in the open-source environment
is so rapid that I am confident any gap will have disappeared in two or
three years. That's why I'm advocating that South Africans embrace open
source now, ahead of the curve.


Is Bill Gates enemy number one?

Not at all -- few people in the world have been effective at managing a
small business and a large business, and Gates has been brilliant
throughout Microsoft's history. In the 1980s, we didn't have the internet,
so a single company was probably the most efficient way to produce software
that worked well together.

 Nowadays, the internet allows collaboration between companies and
volunteers, which has resulted in the rise of open-source software. You
just couldn't make open source work in the 1980s because too few people
were connected, but today it's proving to be the best way to produce
software.


You are a capitalist, yet you preach open-source software? How do you
reconcile that?

The emergence of open source isn't the end of the software industry by any
means, it's just yet another big change in an industry that thrives on
change. I think open source is the way of the future, so I put that into
practice as much through my non-profit foundation work in education as
through my business investments.

 I believe the business model in the software industry will have to evolve,
so I'm investing in companies like Canonical that have newer business
models that might (or might not) work in a world without software licensing
fees. Only time will tell which ideas will prosper.


Was your very successful business that made you billions based on
open-source software?

Yes, entirely. The web server and database software that held the business
together was all open source (in those days I used the Apache web server
and the MySQL database, though now I prefer the PostgreSQL database). A lot
of the core cryptography at Thawte was also handled by open-source tools.


How have you come to terms with your wealth?

It's a struggle, but... :-)

I can't seriously pretend that it's a hardship, but it is a sword with
several sharp edges and no real handle. Certainly, it's changed my material
life, but I'm constantly reminded that the things which make me happiest
are only complicated by wealth, particularly new personal relationships.

 Being able to do whatever I want, in many ways, creates the responsibility
to try to do the right thing for me and for the people I care about. And
what's really interesting is the extent to which time is a great leveller.
No matter how wealthy you are, you get exactly the same amount of time in
your teens, twenties, thirties and so on.

 Instead of being locked into a specific job, I have to choose very
carefully what I do with every single day -- there are more projects that I
can dream about than I have time to do properly, or even funds to do, oddly
enough. So it's a great privilege and at the same time a great
responsibility.


Are you the Bill Gates of Africa?

No, I'm one of a few Mark Shuttleworths of Africa, and apologies to the
other guys who had the name first, I hope I'm not wearing it out! As to
comparisons with Bill Gates, I think he's achieved far more than me in the
way he has steered a large and ultimately huge company through several
decades of change, and I admire that skill greatly.

 It's something I don't think I'd have been able to achieve; I don't have
the same stamina. Even if open source is now going to dominate the
industry, it doesn't detract at all from the accomplishments of Gates and
the Microsoft team in the past.


When are you going to the moon? Have you been in touch with Richard Branson
about more space travel?

For the next space mission, which I hope one day to have the opportunity to
fly, the moon wouldn't be out of the question. But I think it would involve
more "Nazdarovya" than "Virgin".




-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'





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