Mark Shuttleworth
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Mark Richard Shuttleworth (born 18 September 1973) is a South African and British entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu Linux operating system.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2002, Shuttleworth became the first African to travel to space, doing so as a space tourist.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He holds dual citizenship from South Africa and the United Kingdom.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> As of 2020, the Sunday Times Rich List estimated Shuttleworth's worth at £500 million.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Early lifeEdit
Shuttleworth was born in Welkom, Free State, South Africa, to a surgeon and a nursery-school teacher.<ref name="nyt-vance">Template:Cite news</ref> He attended Western Province Preparatory School (where he became Head Boy in 1986), followed by one term at Rondebosch Boys' High School, and then Bishops/Diocesan College where he was Head Boy in 1991.<ref name="wpps-ad">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}Template:Dead link</ref><ref name="bishops-invite">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Shuttleworth obtained a Bachelor of Business Science degree in Finance and Information Systems at the University of Cape Town. As a student, he was involved in the installation of the university's first residential Internet connections.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
WorkEdit
In 1995, Shuttleworth founded Thawte Consulting, a company specializing in digital certificates and Internet security. According to The Official Ubuntu Book, Thawte became the second-largest certificate authority after VeriSign. Shuttleworth sold Thawte to VeriSign in December 1999,<ref name="histubuntu">Template:Citation</ref> earning him R3.5 billion (Template:US$ million, equivalent to $Template:Inflation million in Template:Inflation/year).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In September 2000, Shuttleworth formed HBD Venture Capital (Here be Dragons), a business incubator and venture capital provider, now managed by Knife Capital.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In March 2004 he formed Canonical Ltd., for the promotion and commercial support of free software projects, particularly the Ubuntu operating system. In December 2009, Shuttleworth stepped down as CEO of Canonical Ltd. to focus on "product design, partnerships, and customers", with COO Jane Silber succeeding him.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Shuttleworth returned to the position of CEO of Canonical in July 2017, with Silber moving to Canonical's board of directors.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Linux and FOSSEdit
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In the 1990s, Shuttleworth participated as a developer of the Debian operating system.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> According to the Official Ubuntu Book, he was the first to upload the Apache HTTP Server "into the Debian project's archives".<ref name="histubuntu"></ref>
In 2001, he formed the Shuttleworth Foundation, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to social innovation and funding educational, free, and open source software projects in South Africa, such as the Freedom Toaster.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In 2004, he returned to the free-software world by funding the development of Ubuntu, a Linux distribution based on Debian, through his company, Canonical Ltd.<ref name=":0" />
In 2005, he founded the Ubuntu Foundation and made an initial investment of US$10 million. In the Ubuntu project, Shuttleworth is often referred to with the tongue-in-cheek title "Self-Appointed Benevolent Dictator for Life" (SABDFL).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> While travelling to Antarctica aboard the icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnikov in early 2004, Shuttleworth took six months of Debian mailing list archives with him to compile a list of potential hires for the project.<ref>Linux Format, Jeff Waugh (LXF 87). Template:Webarchive</ref> In September 2005, he purchased a 65% stake of Impi Linux.<ref name="impi">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
On 15 October 2006, Mark Shuttleworth became the first patron of KDE, the highest level of commercial sponsorship available.<ref name="kdepatron">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> This relationship and financial support for Kubuntu (the Ubuntu variant using KDE as the main desktop) ended in 2012.
On 17 December 2009, Shuttleworth announced that, effective March 2010, he would step down as CEO of Canonical to focus on product design, partnerships, and customers. Jane Silber, COO since 2004, succeeded him as CEO.<ref name="ceo">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In September 2010, he received an honorary degree from the Open University for this work.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
On 9 November 2012, Shuttleworth and Kenneth Rogoff debated Garry Kasparov and Peter Thiel at the Oxford Union in a debate entitled "The Innovation Enigma".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
On 25 October 2013, Shuttleworth and Ubuntu received the Austrian anti-privacy Big Brother Award for sending local Ubuntu Unity Dash searches to Canonical servers by default.<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2012, Shuttleworth had defended the anonymisation method used.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He later reversed the decision; this feature is not present in current Ubuntu versions.
SpaceflightEdit
Shuttleworth gained international attention on 25 April 2002, becoming the second self-funded space tourist (after Dennis Tito in 2001) and the first South African in space.Template:Efn Flying through Space Adventures, he launched aboard the Russian Soyuz TM-34 mission as a spaceflight participant,<ref name=iss-nasa>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> paying approximately US$20 million<ref name="space" /> for the voyage (equivalent to $Template:Inflation million in Template:Inflation/year). Two days later, the Soyuz spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station, where he spent eight days participating in experiments related to AIDS and genome research. On 5 May 2002, he returned to Earth on Soyuz TM-33. To participate in the flight, Shuttleworth underwent one year of training and preparation, including seven months in Star City, Russia.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
From space, he spoke via video link to Thabo Mbeki, then president of South Africa, as part of the Freedom Day celebrations marking the end of apartheid.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
He also had a radio conversation with Nelson Mandela and a 14-year-old South African girl, Michelle Foster, who asked him to marry her. He dodged the question, stating that he was "very honoured at the question" before changing the subject.<ref name="space">Space.com, Nelson Mandela Chats with Shuttleworth, 2 May 2002. Template:Webarchive</ref> The terminally ill Foster was provided the opportunity to have a conversation with Mark Shuttleworth and Nelson Mandela by the Reach for a Dream foundation.<ref>BBC News, "Afronaut mourns his 'bride'", 28 May 2002.</ref><ref>Dispatch online, Mark's biggest fan dies of cancer, 28 May 2002. Template:Webarchive</ref>
TransportEdit
He owns a private jet, a Bombardier Global Express, often referred to as Canonical One but owned through his HBD Venture Capital company.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Ask Slashdot: Mark Shuttleworth "Canonical One doesn't *actually* belong to Canonical"</ref><ref>Airliners.net: Bombardier BD-700-1A10 Global Express</ref> The dragon depicted on the side of the plane is Norman, the HBD Venture Capital mascot.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Legal clash with the South African Reserve BankEdit
When moving R2.5 billion in capital from South Africa to the Isle of Man, the South African Reserve Bank imposed a R250 million levy to release his assets.<ref name="htxt_levy">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Shuttleworth successfully sued the Reserve Bank in the Supreme Court of Appeal to have the levy returned. However, on 18 June 2015, the Constitutional Court of South Africa reversed the lower courts' ruling, finding that the primary purpose of an exit charge was to regulate conduct rather than raise revenue.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The court held "...that the exit charge was not inconsistent with the Constitution. The dominant purpose of the exit charge was not to raise revenue but rather to regulate conduct by discouraging the export of capital to protect the domestic economy."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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