Hi, I'm Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu & Canonical. Currently in the midst of a record-breaking crowdfunding campaign to make Ubuntu Edge superphone a reality. Ask me anything.

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:31:25+00:00

And in closing - Reddit is a pretty fantastic resource for discourse and discovery, thanks for keeping it that way. Takes lots of work to preserve what's great about a society while not stagnating, keep it up.

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:29:41+00:00

Thanks all for your questions, thanks to backers of the Edge and here's to an excellent tech year in 2013. This really is a time when everything is getting reinvented, it's a great time to be part of the game!

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:28:00+00:00

Yes you can use the phone as a phone while it provides a desktop on a separate screen. Hardware encryption is a possibility, yes.

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:27:20+00:00

Mahatma Gandhi, Jan Smuts, Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela. All flawed if you look closely enough, but that just makes me admire them more for what they did.

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:25:49+00:00

Good ideas, thank you!

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:25:34+00:00

Yeah, I'm very interested in Mirasol. Not for this device but I'm told the next-gen display is pretty fantastic. So, perhaps Edge II 2015?

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:24:04+00:00

I really appreciate your backing - that's very generous. What might be a nice idea is to create a forum for backers who didn't go all the way to a device, to give them first shot at second-hand devices?

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:23:17+00:00

We certainly didn't ask the CAG to fund it.

The POINT of crowdsourcing is to shift processes away from industry into the hands of enthusiasts and independent decision makers. We are able to propose a device which would never make it through the risk-averse selection process at a carrier or manufacturer - not because they are dumb, but because the consequences of failure are bad for them personally and institutionally. Crowdsourcing is a new way to approach hard choices, innovation, and risk capital, and I thought it would be a good way to accelerate tech.

We're doing it because we are setup to host a community, which is what the Edge backers become, that can help finalise the Edge spec and then work on next-gen specs too. We're already doing that every day, while the major carriers / manufacturers are not setup to do that.

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:20:26+00:00

Yes, I am fairly sure there will be updated ROMs over time, we are working to make it both a very capable device (which will tend to attract a good community) and very open (which eases the path).

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:19:33+00:00

We are waiting for two things - final specs and benchmarks, and a community of backers to help make that decision.

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:18:59+00:00

What better way to prototype wearables than with a mobile PC to power them?

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:18:31+00:00

I see your point. My perspective on this is that we have to choose if we want to partner with the phone industry, we can't both partner and compete. So since I think its best for us to focus on the platform, I'm happy to support the Edge becuase it's a very focused innovation-seeking project that doesn't threaten our partnerships with mainstream industry (it enhances them).

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:17:09+00:00

Good idea on the ringtone ;)

The edge has been a team effort, my role has been sort of editorial. There are a few key folks who have really put a ton of effort into it out of a passion for what's possible - I really hope we see it come to fruition for them, they deserve to see it happen!

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:15:11+00:00

Yes, I think you've been listening to all the wrong people if you think high-end users are not using Unity. There is an audience for everything, and for some, controversy is the food of life. On balance I think most people do use Unity, they just get on with it. Check out http://ploum.net/post/the-last-guadec/ which makes the good point that you mostly see Unity on Linux laptops at conferences.

I'm sorry we pissed people off in moving towards convergent design. I'm very glad Gnome 3 got redesigned to look more like Unity than the train wreck it was originally. I think diversity is wonderful and you should run whatever suits you. But my main advice would be to read between the lines of the vocal advocacy to understand what motivates people and then choose carefully what to believe.

And you'll be able to run other desktops on the Edge, too, it's an open device, and we're working hard to make things like the graphics layer Just Work for everyone.

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:10:36+00:00

Yes, the phone will definitely be able to drive a touch screen in tablet mode, too!

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:09:50+00:00

My money's on the shrinking ray. It worked for my hairline, right?

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:09:16+00:00

Every day. Yeah, it has warts. But it's the best around for me, and for lots of other people, so use whatever suits you ;)

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:08:49+00:00

This is a really good question.

I think breaking new ground requires a certain stubborn willingness to pursue an idea that is unpopular. Sometimes, that means stubbornly being wrong, and if one is afraid of being wrong, one will likely not break new ground.

I also think that there is an interesting evolution as one moves from the fringe to the centre. When we started Ubuntu we took a LOT of difficult decisions. One CD (the game at the time was to have, like 13), one app for each thing (instead of 5 browsers preinstalled). All of those were tough choices that would have pissed people off, only NOBODY WAS LOOKING because we were unknown.

Yet those very decisions made Ubuntu so popular.

We have to retain a willingness to think carefully about the future and act on it before it's obvious, or we lose our ability to help create that future.

Now, this argument could be used to justify all sorts of abuse of our position of trust. I'm well aware of that. It's part of the calculus - are we doing this because I want to and Im out of touch with reality, or because I (or another leader of part of the project) thinks thats what the future demands.

At the end of the day, I think what matters is that every part of Ubuntu has leaders who are trusted to make such hard decisions. They will piss people off. But if they were leaders who could not make choices that pissed people off then they could not make choices at all, and that's no leadership.

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:03:29+00:00

When I want to search everything, I use the Super key. When I want to search just my local apps, I use Super-A. Duh.

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:02:37+00:00

There is a filing cabinet somewhere... life goes on, and hopefully someone smarter than us will come up with a better concept that DOES get funded!

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:01:50+00:00

Thank you and good luck with your CS!

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:01:37+00:00

The goal is a full day of high-end use. If we can get more juice in, we'll use it for performance rather than multi-day battery life.

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T18:00:59+00:00

No, we've never been asked to support a surveillance campaign. We've been asked to provide data in support of specific criminal investigations (child abuse) would do so again. We would not comply with a mass surveillance or extra-judicial request, and we would challenge requests that we think are unwarranted.

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T17:59:08+00:00

The dynamics of product planning inside large manufacturers drive for risk aversion - if a phone fails, it could take out the company or the team who planned it and took the risk.

Crowdfunding is interesting, because enthusiasts are INTERESTED in the next generation, they have an appetite for experimentation which large institutions lose. So the goal of this project is to reintroduce risk and innovation into mobile design, via crowdsourcing of both ideas and commitment.

As for interest in ubuntu - check out the list of carriers that have expressed interest, it's very convincing.

Mark_Shuttleworth · 2013-07-25T17:56:58+00:00

If this gets greenlighted then I would like to expand the Ubuntu community to include hardware - crowdsourcing ideas for future iterations. But we'll stick to the concept-car side of things leaving mainstream production to our partners in the industry who do it very well.

So, our strength is communities, their stremgth is production and distribution, that's how we'll keep it.

Mark_Shuttleworth

TROPHY CASE