Just posting this as a matter of interest. It only is obliquely relevant to the technical issues. Still, I feel the community should take note as I think it is rather unfair to S.

http://www.moneyweb.co.za/moneyweb-s...g-reserve-bank

Why is it unfair to Shuttleworth?

He is a dual citizen of UK/SA, has moved his money out of SA, lives in and works in the UK. Not just the UK, but the isle of man (its where canonical is based for tax reasons, a well known tax haven). Near enough to being UK only, and the basing of canoncial in the isle of man does show a reluctance to pay 'normal' taxes IMO. Its only being done because he wants more of 'his' money back (R250m+ from what I've seen)-

http://news.howzit.msn.com/article.a...ntid=255755989

The vast majority of us cant possibly get money back from the government. The only reason why Shuttleworth has a chance of getting some back is because of the vast amount of money he has. One rule for the rich, another for the poor.....

I think he's an agent. His other mission is to hijack the FLOSS movement.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in <General> and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

Much appreciated, thank you!

I'm always surprised that people will get indignant about companies like Amazon practicing tax avoidance but they ignore Canonical. They may be registered in the IOM, but their offices are in London, yet they don't pay British corporation tax. How much would they pay? We can't tell, because the accounts are unpublished.

As for Shuttleworth's personal situation, why shouldn't a government tax the super-rich when they decide to bolt to a tax haven?

I´ll still give my reasons, when I have a free moment, why I think Shuttleworth has a worthy cause. BTW the one reason is that I am writing this on a pc running on an Ubuntu OS.

What surprises me is that he enjoys so little support. Is Unity really THAT difficult to swallow?

So, you are saying that what he is doing is a good thing ?

I think this quote is the most accurate:
So you are with him because he decided to make the Ubuntu distro ?

I think he should be thoroughly investigated for financial crimes after this.

He has poured more of his own money into open source than anyone else. The beneficiaries of his money are us Ubuntu users (probably the entire Linux community). Canonical is not doing well financially the last time I looked. In fact I very much doubt whether the open source philosophy can be turned into a financial success. So, to a large extent he is doing welfare work in the software/internet world. A much worthier cause than pouring R250 million into pres Zuma´s personal home.

But these are peripheral issues.

Canonical is a for profit organization, don't forget that. Ubuntu tries its best to emulate popular OSs so that it can get users while ignoring critical principles of *nix.

You mean like Red Hat does?

He is pouring his money into a for profit organization that he build without a reasonable business model. This is far from being welfare and doesn't magically put him over the law.

I have read that S pours scorn on the geeks in favour of the more ignorant. It is a different market and I would think that the geeks can look after themselves. Is it so wrong to try and bring low cost (but sophisticated) computing to the people? Are the *nix principles really so sacrosanct? Perhaps one should not forget Shuttleworth´s African roots (his earlier leanings were strongly towards the ANC)- the masses of uneducated people without a hope in hell of ever affording even a Windows game.

As regards Canonical being a for profit organisation (I assume the correctness of that statement), surely one cannot begrudge him an attempt to turn a profit - especially if the overall goal is the alleviation of ignorance. It is his money after all. He also attempted to challenge Microsoft - I see he thinks that Bug 1 has been solved! A strong financial basis would be the only way of doing that. Perhaps in fact, one can argue that what is wrong with Ubuntu is a lack of good developers because the finances to do that are lacking.

I've got nothing but support for anyone who manages to dodge taxes. Given the choice, the freedom, I'm sure that a lot of people wouldn't be so eager to pay taxes, either.

What are "critical principles of *nix"?

It is not so much the *NIX principles, it is how he works (or better: does not work) with the open source community, those people that built his OS in the first place, treating them in a way that is not acceptable for those people. Canonical had shot itself in both feet at the same time with their recent actions, it will not take long until they fall flat to the ground because of that.

Mark Shuttleworth is anything but a saint.

Well, is Red Hat really so successful? Not where I live (SA). Here the only alternative to Windows most people have ever heard of is Ubuntu (not least because of the name). It would be interesting to know what penetration Red Hat has in Africa. My own awareness of a world beyond Microsoft only emerged with the free Ubuntu cd a pc dealer gave me (Not a Red Hat one).

As to your second paragraph, I tend to agree that he is attempting a very difficult thing (to run a profitable business on an open source basis). For that reason one should perhaps condone forays into what the hard core Linux enthusiast would view with horror. After all, from what I gather, there is money to be made even in Linux land on the server business. So it is not as if the original Linux community completely eschewed a penny here or there.

Up to this point S has obeyed the law (and paid the levies). I don´t think that one can say that that points to a perception on his part that he is above the law. His main gripe is that the levy is rather arbitrary (it was imposed two years after he emigrated and dropped just after he had finally transferred his assets out of SA).