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Thawte Founder Launches Open Source Campaign
An anonymous reader writes "Mark Shuttleworth ? ,
lauched a campaign to increase the
use of open-source software in South Africa, according to the Sunday
Times. The GO-open source campaign
is aimed at households and small businesses. Shuttleworth
founded Thawte Consulting in 1995 and subsequently sold it to Verisign for $575
Million."
.. but looks to bre premature to me?
"I want to give it a try" comes up with "send us your name and address and we'll send you a CD!"
How about whats on this CD, a more useful (other than the little thats in the FAQ's) list of links on where to stay/get up to date with your software, etcetc?
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
I haven't seen that everything2 superscript questionmark on Slashdot in a long time.
Why did it go away, anyway?
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
if it rendered properly under a gecko browser.... but I suppose that isn't the target audience right?
Spending R18 million (if I knew what the "R" was I'd convert it) on open source advertising can't hurt. I'd think funding local open source outfits with startup capital and training would probably go farther though. All the pretty advertisements in the world aren't going to help you get your Fedora Desktop running correctly when there's a kernel bug.
You're reading Slashdot. Of course you like Linux and pc hardware
I selected the wrong moderation choice on a post and am posting this to kill that moderation. I ask other moderators to have mercy, and not mod me off-topic, but instead just let this post languish at it's default level.
Use this link instead: Mark Shuttleworth.
This has nothing to do with Verisign. Mark sold Thawte to Verisign and is using the money for better causes. The money that is being used for this initiative is Mark's and the partners involved, NOT Verisign. If you understood the situation in South Africa, which I do as a citizen, any new way to save money that could be put to use in a better way is something to look at.
Afro as in African. Afro-American meaning African American. Just a short way of saying it. :)
In his Bio he lists Slashdot as one of his likes.
He sold Thwate for $575M. Damn, outside of the guy who founded Hotmail and actually walked away from a Microsoft $300M offer, holding out until he got something like $500M, this is the 2nd most impressive dot-com startup guy I've heard about. That's amazing.
A very nice gentleman recently contacted me about transferring some funds out of Africa as well.
I'm probably at the karma cap. Mod up a funny troll instead, it lightens the mood
http://www.markshuttleworth.com/
If you can read this sig - the bitch fell off.
How about having a whip-round for the cash needed to get a nice professional hit done on the Minister for Bullshi^h^h^h Health? I'm only half-joking - any country that has a health minister who recommends potatoes, garlic and lemon juice as a cure for AIDS & who is NOT then sacked in disgrace on the spot, has _serious_ problems :/
(google for "Mantu AIDS M'Beki" for the gory details...) Anyway this is completely O/T.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
We here in ZA has seen a lot of integration of open source everywhere, even our own government supports it. Another shuttleworth link.
"What resolution is life running at"
This sane Mike Shuttleworth offered, about 2 months ago, some funding for The Gimp, and two of the current developers made a deal with him to be paid to further GEGL (Generic Graphical Library) development and integration with the GIMP.
GEGL, once fully implemented, and integrated to The GIMP core, will finally allow it to use images with higher color depths than 8 bit per plane.
-><- no
Disclaimer : I am going to try and keep this civil and troll / flame free, expressing my honest feelings - but damn!
:)
:)
Then let me try and be so in return...
Does nobody see the long term ramifications of this? Is there nobody that can see the writing on the wall?
Well, Andy Grove did in his book Only The Paranoid Survive. Probably the most famous quote in there was this one:
"If the world operates as one big market, every employee will compete with every person anywhere in the world who is capable of doing the same job. There are lots of them and many of them are hungry."
Sounds like a spot-on prediction to me. Bear in mind that this was published in 1996 which shows you just how much insight he had back then.
I honestly don't envision the long term effects of this as 'a good thing'. Jesus H. Christ - how's this for an idea : how about I go to some third world country where the wage scales make Indian off-shore wages look like a king's ransom and teach all the indigenous inhabitants how to be 'computer guys'.
Sounds good. Nothing like a bit of volunteer work to get your worldviews really in perspective
These guys would sell their own brother into slavery for a cow and a chicken, just envision what they would do for $2/hr.
Surprisingly, most people in the third world (where I live) want the same as you: to be left alone, to have food on the table, roofs over their heads and satisfying work to do to earn money.
Anybody that thinks their long term employment prospects are bad now, just wait until this little project comes to fruition.
I don't see how - the campaign is promoting the use and development of open source software. Anyone in the world who uses it will benefit.
The real problem for US tech workers right now is that globalisation has caught up with you where it hurts and I would be lying if that word shadenfreude hasn't occurred to me more than once recently. For many years, the globalisation mantra has benefited few economies outside the US. It's going to be good for your economy in the long run like making it more competitive for a start
Plenty of us outside the US (I am South African for the record) have seen this coming for ages, especially in the FLOSS arena where no-one cares where you're from as long as your code is clean and works. Outsourcing of development and support to skilled markets outside the US was just the next step - and it's happening.
My first impressions were probably right, Mark Shuttleworth needs to take his $575M and spend the rest of his life like Hugh Hefner, set up a mansion and tap a LOT of high quality ass.
He could have but he chose instead to put money back into the open source community.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.