Open Voices: Mark Shuttleworth

“Jim Zemlin: Let’s talk a little bit about the business of open
source. You’re obviously a successful businessman, you’ve invested
in both Ubuntu as a nonprofit which you’ve stated you want to see
break even; in other words, be economically sustainable in and of
itself.

“But you’ve also invested in Canonical which is a for-profit
company in the business of free software and sort of the supports
surrounding that.

“Tell me a little bit about lessons you’ve learned in the
process of both of those, but in particular I’m interested in the
Canonical side, really the for-profit business about making money
around open source.

“Mark Shuttleworth: Well, to me it’s very straightforward. I
think that the software licensing business models of the 80’s and
90’s are really at the end of their cycle and so I just wouldn’t be
that interested in starting a business now which was fundamentally
about trying to get people to buy software that I invented…”

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