Philosophy and economics of Ubuntu

[J.B. Nicholson-Owens]

Rudi von Staden wrote:
> Their response is that Open Source will never succeed in the long term
> because there is no financial incentive for the developers/investors.

Then they are very much out of touch.  That same bad argument was leveled
against the older free software movement (see
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html for details) and it gives free
software advocates pleasure to watch economists have to fix their apparently
bad theories.  Large multinational corporations including IBM, Microsoft, and 
Hewlett-Packard don't get involved in something unless there is some benefit 
for their investors.  Yet all of them distribute software licensed under both 
free software and open source terms.  IBM and HP even develop such software 
under the GNU GPL, the preeminent free software license (which the open source 
movement also approves of).

> I don't want to clog the list with philosophical debates on Open Source
> [...]

This is the list for off-topic discussion.  I'd say such a discussion is hardly
a clog here.

> [...] but I am curious about why Mark Shuttleworth would invest in Ubuntu -
> is it purely benevolent or is it intended to return a profit in the future?

At the risk of stating the obvious: ask Shuttleworth.

But to really understand any answer to the question, read
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html which explains the
difference between the free software and open source movements as well as
briefing you on the history of both movements.  I think you'll find it an
interesting read because there is an identifiable philosophical difference 
between the two movements, but the two movements are not enemies.  They have a 
different take on proprietary software (which is typically done purely for 
profit): free software movement abhors it on ethical grounds, open source 
movement sees it as a less efficient means of achieving technical superiority.