Mark Shuttleworth - Lifehacker Interview: Productivity and Linux

[23meg]

Lifehacker recently asked their readers (http://lifehacker.com/software/ask-the-readers/what-should-we-ask-mark-shuttleworth-289548.php) what they'd like to ask Mark Shuttleworth in an interview focused on productivity and the Gutsy release, and the interview was conducted a few days ago; here's the link:

http://lifehacker.com/software/exclusive-lifehacker-interview/ubuntu-founder-mark-shuttleworth-on-productivity-and-linux-294941.php

[Ebuntor]

Very interesting interview, thanks for sharing. :)

[23meg]

Now, this quote will bring a huge boom of interest to this thread:


Lifehacker: Please describe your personal productivity system. What version of Ubuntu are you using and what applications are part of your daily routine?

Mark Shuttleworth: I am running Gutsy, which is the current development version that will be released in October, and I use Thunderbird heavily. For me it's a better email system than Evolution.

[forrestcupp]

Now, this quote will bring a huge boom of interest to this thread:

Yeah, I noticed that. So why don't they include Thunderbird by default?

I also thought this quote about Dell was interesting:

They've figured out how to make Linux available to those consumers who are specifically looking for it without accidentally having folks who don't know what Linux is (and who don't really want Linux) accidentally buying those machines. That's critical to the economic viability of the offering.
It is unwise to force or sneak Linux on people who don't understand what they're getting into.

[az]

My favorite quote from that article:
"I think it is really important to realize that if you see yourself as being a real IT professional and you're ambitious as an IT professional, Linux offers tremendous opportunities. First, people who are very familiar with Linux are paid more than people who are only familiar with Windows or Mac. Second, this is in fact measurable...Microsoft will tell you as much—one of their arguments against Linux is that people are expensive"

[Anthem]

Thunderbird loses to Evolution because it doesn't do calendaring.

But it's vastly superior to Evolution in every other way.

[Ultra Magnus]

I like thunderbird but its really difficult to get hotmail emails on it, whereas its pretty straight forward using evoltuion

[Depressed Man]

Eh, I find that Evolution loses in that regard because of lack of Google Calendar support (never could get gcal daemon working). Though I heard there was a Google Summmer of Code project meant to fix that.. (anyone know anything about it's progress?).

At least with Thunderbird I can throw in Lightning and the Google provider extension and tada! Google Calendar in Thunderbird. :)

I never could get hotmail in Evolution either (haven't tried any of the solutions out there like freepops though). But in TB I use the webmail + hotmail extension.