African Tech leader campaigns for OSS

Mark Shuttleworth is a UCT graduate. The Internet and computer games developed his interest in technology. Shuttleworth devotes much of his time searching new opportunities in global technology. He spent about R20 Million to visit space. That was made possible by the selling of his Thawte company (www.thawte.com) that became the first to produce a full-security e-commerce web server that was commercially available outside the United States. He then founded the Shuttleworth Foundation which played a crucial role in the Go-Open Source Campaign, joining forces with companies such as CSIR and HP. The campaign will run for two years and has a total budget of R18m.

Open Source is a computer software that is freely available to any user,
for installation, modification (source code is freely available) and redistribution. It is built by volunteers worldwide and has no restraining licence conditions.

Shuttleworth Foundation has 10 reasons on the importance of Open Source.