In February we invited the Fridge readers to send in their questions for a future interview with the one and only, Mark Shuttleworth.

The interview, hosted by Jonathan Roberts, was turned into a 30 minute podcast available in MP3 and OGG formats.

Jonathan Roberts is preparing the next episode of his podcast, and his guest will be Mark Shuttleworth, the man behind Ubuntu and Canonical. But Jonathan needs your questions. Please visit his web site for more details on how to submit questions to ask Mark during his interview. The recording will be on February 26th, so you will need to send in your questions before then.

Behind Ubuntu has published an interview with Ben Collins.

Ben Collins is the maintainer of the Linux Kernel in Ubuntu. In this interview you will learn about his work on Ubuntu, his love of vim, and why his servers are hosted in a real barn, surrounded by cows and electric fences.

This interview, and many others, are available on the Behind Ubuntu web site.

Just what is Ubuntu’s Community Manager hiding behind that beard?

Find out in BehindUbuntu’s revealing interview with our very own man of metal, Jono Bacon.

Learn of his love for Florida, Sausage Dogs and bash.org! Open your mouth wide in shock as he slips in a full two sentences pimping Jokosher!

You can also find out about Jono’s views on:

• LoCo team mentoring - successful teams help newer teams get up and running;
• The importance of karma-style systems;
• Clear communication as the basis of good community.

Meet the man behind the beard, in BehundUbuntu’s interview with Jono Bacon.

Raphaël Pinson looks to the next release

Behind Ubuntu has published an interview with Raphaël Pinson.

Raphaël is known for his work on Kubuntu, and more recently on Ichthux, a Linux distribution based on Kubuntu and aimed at Christian users and communities.

In his interview, we learn how Raphaël’s Christianity has influenced his involvement in the open source community, how he feels non-English speakers fare and what he gets up to in his spare time.

This interview, and many others, are available on the Behind Ubuntu web site. Pop over to read the whole sequence now!

The latest edition of the weekly BBC World Service show Digital Planet, carries an interview with none other than our SABDFL, Mark Shuttleworth.

On the show, Mark talks about Ubuntu, with his inspirations for running the Ubuntu project. The role of free software in education and developing countries is discussed regarding a South Africa project supported by the Shuttleworth Foundation allowing students to download and print certified educational materials for no cost.

You can download and listen to the podcast of the show from the Digital Planet homepage. Mark Shuttleworth’s interview on an Open Source future is right at the very beginning.

Note: It has been reported that the commandline-based MP3 decoder 'mpg123' may have trouble the podcast MP3 link (11MB). Mplayer plays this file fine after skipping some initial data at the front of the file.

Top dog ‘mdz’ joins the walk of fame

Kenny Duffus sent us word that Behind Ubuntu have a shiny interview with Matt Zimmerman (aka mdz), Ubuntu’s Chief Technologist Officer (CTO).

Matt was one of the early people to come on board to the Ubuntu project having been recruited from his involved work with Debian, particularly in their Security Team.

For those people who’ve met Matt and attempted to work out where his driving motivation comes from, you may find some intriguing clues. The interview contains a series of question across many topics, the larger part being about life rather than computers. In response to whom Matt admires most, he expresses:

I admire people who relentlessly pursue their own curiosity and, in the process, challenge the rest of us to do the same. People who question what they see and explore it deeply, who are never satisfied with an incomplete answer.

If you are the type of person who is also inquisitive to the extreme, answers await you inside this interview! Could you be the next Ubuntu CTO or lead the Ubuntu Technical Board?

The full text is available on Behind Ubuntu along with several previous interviews.

Daniel Holbach (aka dholbach), one of the lead developers working in the Ubuntu Desktop team, has been speaking to BehindUbuntu.

Now, when you meet Daniel at conferences, you can compete with other people to see who knows most about him.

I’ve got my own notes here, written on my arm:

• Has dog, called Murphy
• Likes drum’n’bass
• Lives in a big castle
• Only eats asparagus

I’m sure we’ll be the best of friends!

Read the interview at BehindUbuntu.org

Reinhard “siretart” Tartler: MOTU member

The folks over at Behind Ubuntu present an interview with Reinhard Tartler (aka siretart) and all round nice person. Reinhard is perhaps best known for his work on REVU (“review”).

REVU is the automated system that universe maintainers (MOTU) use for sanity-checking new packages. Before allowing new software to be uploaded into the real archive, REVU provides an upload facility that behaves in a similar way. REVU emulates an Ubuntu upload, much like an aircraft simulator gives pilots a safe way to test out new maneuvers, in safety.

With a proposed package now inside REVU, individual files making up the package are split out, each file being available for viewing simply by clicking in a web-browser. Along side, a status report about the quality of a proposed package is generated. Debian programs Lintian and Linda are automatically run against the source code; these two checkers are tasked with finding simple syntax errors, or policy issues—such as attempting to store executable files in an incorrect location on the filesystem or hard-disk.

Masters Of The Universe are responsible for reviewing each other suggested updates. Once REVU has assembled all the information in a single location on the system, feedback and comments are given by other MOTUs to improve, or help work-around, any areas of concern that were flagged up in the package. Finally, an option to vote allows new MOTU-produced packages to make it through the door once packages collect two positive votes from other uploaders.

Peer-review, as used throughout Open Source and Free Software, is a great system and makes for the creation of high-quality packaged software. REVU makes that peer-review for Ubuntu even easier. Many thanks to Reinhard for sparing time for his interview!

More4 News, a Channel4 associate, interviewed Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth recently. The video of the interview is available at the online news story. Mark talks about philanthropy and technology in the interview, and we get to know that he loves the geek culture :)

When you’ve made £400m before your 30th birthday -you’d probably want to spend the rest of your days living the highlife.
But not Mark Shuttleworth who made his fortune when he sold off his internet security company four years ago.
Since then, he has given half of it to charity and bought a £13m pound ticket to space station.
Now he’s working hard to create a free software - which he hopes will rival Microsoft. He has given a rare interview to More 4 News.

Update: Jonathan Riddell tells us: The direct link to the video is mms://longurl… (right-click, copy) which can be downloaded using mimms from universe, then played with the w32codecs and mplayer. …If it doesn’t work out of the box :-)

[Discuss the video on the forums]