Free Software Foundation Award Nomination
The Free Software Foundation has put out a call for nominations for the 2005 FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software. I sent this nomination in:
I would like to nominate Mark Shuttleworth for the 2005 FSF Award. Mark Shuttleworth is an adventurous and innovative entrepreneur whose intrepid spirit has led him as far as outer space, but whose vision remains grounded. Mr. Shuttleworth founded Thawte, a provider of digital security certificates, ten years ago, and made his fortune. Since then, he has used his business skills (and no small amount of cash) to fund many exciting open-source projects.
Mr. Shuttleworth recently founded Canonical, Ltd., the creators of Ubuntu GNU/Linux, now recognized as one of the simplest to setup and use GNU/Linux distributions available. He also created and provided initial funding for the Ubuntu Foundation to provide support to users of Ubuntu and development resources for the project itself.
He is heavily involved in helping create and disseminate free software for use in education. His SchoolTool project provides school administrators, teachers, and students with a powerful system to facilitate all facets of education. The Edubuntu version of Ubuntu is optimized for use by teachers and students in the classroom. Providing students with hands-on interaction with free software at an early age is key to their embracing it as they grow older. I believe Mr. Shuttleworth’s work in this area will help create a new generation of free software enthusiasts.
The Shuttleworth Foundation has set up 155 “tuXLabs” (educational computer centers in schools, completely running open-source software) throughout South Africa, in an effort to enhance the quality of education there. Additionally, the Foundation offers a large number of monetary bounties for various projects aimed at furthering various free software packages.
See the following sites for more information:
http://www.markshuttleworth.com/
http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/
http://www.schooltool.org/
http://www.edubuntu.org/
http://www.tuxlab.org.za/
