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Ask Mark Shuttleworth Anything
In addition to founding Canonical Ltd., the Ubuntu Foundation, and funding the Freedom Toaster, Mark Shuttleworth is a space enthusiast. In April 2002 Mark became the second self-funded space tourist and the first African in space. He spent eight days participating in experiments on the International Space Station as part of his $20 million trip. Now he's ready to answer your questions. Ask him anything you like, but please limit yourself to one question per post.
Once Steam for Linux comes out on Ubuntu, what is the first game you will download and play?
sudo make me a sandwich
I heard a story of you sitting in on a LUG dressed in a Darth Vader mask so people wouldn't recognise you until the end of the talk. Do you find that people treat you very differently now that you are famous, and seeing that a lot of people take exception to the direction you have taken Ubuntu? How do you deal with this, and what steps do you take to make sure you stay grounded in reality?
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
Since you like to comment on both government interaction with businesses and seem to be interested in space travel, what is the appropriate level of the government's role in space? Can you define what is too little and what is too far? What, if anything, should each nation regulate? Are nationalistic programs and races good for space travel or should it just all be privatized and given a sort of 'international waters' anything goes freedom?
My work here is dung.
Will Ubuntu ever be a certified platform for running Oracle databases?
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
(Insert my standard question for all ask /. tech people)
Describe a hack that you personally participated in that you find cool. Not you paid someone to ... or I once saw someone else ... or you bought something cool that ... I mean traditional hack like "identify problem" "flash of insight in ur brain" "minutes to days of sweat using techie tools" "something cool now exists, lookit". I don't care about the subject as long as its vaguely slashdot style technical and you think its cool and the slashdot audience would think its cool. The coolest hack is not necessarily the biggest or most famous, either. Maybe you have a hobby where you personally programmed the worlds coolest christmas light display on your house, or you handmade a truly elaborate model railroad fully articulated draw bridge, I donno, whatever floats your boat. TLDR just tell your hack story, and make it cool.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Linux is a huge success in mobile. Linux is a huge success in servers (and Ubuntu in particular seems to be doing very well in servers, congratulations).
But Linux on the desktop seems to be going nowhere fast as far as market share is concerned.
In your opinion, what would have to happen in order for Linux to start gaining ground in the desktop?
I used Linux for over a decade as my main OS, eventually ending up on Ubuntu. When I started using Linux, it had a reputation for being rock-solid and about as stable as you can possibly get, and I was happy with that. Newer hardware wasn't supported very well, but older hardware support was unparalleled. This was also reflected in the beginning of Ubuntu - I seem to recall you had a push to make sure the hardware on every laptop model was supported as best it could be.
However as the years progressed, I found Linux becoming more and more buggy and unstable. The final straw was when I tried to upgrade Ubuntu, and not only had I lost hardware support for several things, but there were even crashes upon loading the LiveCD installer (this was solid hardware that lasted for a couple more years). I bounced around trying to find the stability from years ago, but never found it. Today, I'm using OS X, which is far more stable than Linux in the last few years I was using it.
What happened?
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Have you talked with Adobe about bringing the Creative Suite (or parts of it) to Ubuntu? Please don't point to open source alternatives in your answer.
Why doesn't Ubuntu include Android emulation so people can run their vast catalog of Android apps on their laptop, tablet or the like?