Chiriquí Chatter

There is no question that today the world needs heroes more than any other time in our planet’s short history. Today you will find many things written about September 11, the events that occurred then, and as a result of that day in 2001. This is not going to be one of those posts.

As you may know, one of my activities has been bringing up a Linux System. For me this has been to keep the technical juices flowing and my mind active as well as to see how far Linux has moved in competing with the commercial offerings that are out there.

On a previous post, I mentioned that I have moved from testing SuSE to a totally free distribution of ubuntu. The other day, I was reading an article whose address I forgot to record, about the philanthropist who had sponsored the ubuntu distribution. So today, I set out to find it again. While I did not find the article I was looking for, I have found several others.

The individual that is promoting ubuntu is Mark Shuttleworth.

You may remember him as the first African in space. If you are a follower of technology, you may remember that in 1999, Mark sold his company Thawte, a company specialising in digital certificates and Internet privacy, to the US company VeriSign. With that money he founded HBD (Here Be Dragons) Venture Capital and The Shuttleworth Foundation.

You have to love a company that has the name “Here Be Dragons”. This nonprofit company has a focus on social conditions in Africa with a special emphasis on education. Because Mark believed that education is the basis for improving life in all parts of the world, he founded the ubuntu project in 2004. Its objective was to provide a high quality, fully functional desktop environment that would be freely available through out the world.

What Mark and the ubuntu team have been able to accomplish in the short amount of time this project has existed is really amazing. I am more impressed everyday with how well this free system is functioning. While I am still learning Linux and ubuntu, there is virtually nothing that I cannot accomplish with this system.

While there are others arming with weapons of mass destruction in an effort to further their cause all in the name of their god, I believe that here is only one true god and he will look more favorably on arming all people with education. Education is the way to understanding and understanding is the way to peace.

Thank goodness for heroes such as Mark Shuttleworth. You might enjoy seeing his blog, which is ubuntu related.

This post has been written using the free AbiWord word processor and using the free ubuntu Linux distribution.

Tags: Linux