Mark, how crafty, using the homophobe card. You’re in the same boat as Tom. Accusing Tom of being a closet homosexual is not homophobia. It’s accusing Tom of being a closet homosexual — that’s it! Members of the gay community, such as Dan Savage, routinely lambaste closet homosexuals. It’s the denial that’s being chiefly attacked, and the hateful ways it manifests itself, not homosexuals themselves. You are a troll just like Tom, or at the very least, an intellectual buffoon who should be locked int the same prison cell with him. You’re one of those people that accuses terrorists of racism whenever a black man is killed in a bombing simply because a black man was among the 30 victims. Grow a brain.

I am a non-techie and a new Ubuntu user and guess whose tutorials I have found to be among the most helpful? A girl’s!

perhaps this is why most women don’t choose engineering or software development as careers

As a woman in technology and out in the working world for a while now, I think it has more to do with what happens to women in this culture. Less respect, less pay, harassment on the job and career penalties for child-bearing. If society is, subtly and not so subtly (see @tom above) telling you you’re not capable, is it any wonder if some women believe it?

As for @Tom, maybe is wife really isn’t capable of computer literacy. That doesn’t make her stupid. Or maybe, given his attitude, she has no interest in learning about it. I wouldn’t care to learn from someone who calls me stupid. In fact, it might be quite impossible to learn from someone like that.

You get back what you put in — if you go through life convinced that women are stupid and inferior, all the women who aren’t — most of us I’d say — will stay away from you and for you, the world looks like what you believe it is. And there’s the common result that all the women who don’t fit your stereotype will be denied or explained away.

People say thoughtless things all the time and maybe Mark Shuttleworth was merely thoughtless. And yet, what is his mind set such that a thoughtless moment produces a comment like that? And how many women hear something like that and decide they’ll stay the heck away from a profession where women are denigrated? No wonder women stay out of technology. In droves.

By the way, Bill Bartmann is a legitimate business person technically. I read about him somewhere in the blogosphere but he’s one of those network marketing guys, so spam is synonymous with him. I get spam in my inbox daily from Bill.

Good comments by Mark and Mackenzie too btw.

I believe what Mark Terranova and what Ryan said are correct. Any person in a position of power or prestige is looked upon by a large audience and therefore has an inherent responsibility to do the right thing. Mark Shuttleworth has done a lot of “good” things, but folks if we look at his personal expenditures objectively, there are better causes that the money could have gone to. I could name dozens off the top of my head but that is not the point. I think actions speak louder than words and Shuttleworth has a track record of doing self-gratifying things as opposed to selfless deeds. Ubuntu Linux is his little baby, whether it’s a great OS/Project/Contribution or not. He also paid an absurd amount to fly to space, and lives at the top of the world.

I hypothesize that Mark is chauvinistic to some extent, but has hidden it rather well throughout the years. He’s also probably not anywhere near a bad case of it. If you can just meditate for a while and think as freely of your own bias as you can about what kind of person Shuttleworth is given his track record and past actions you will find the truth about his character.

Think analytically, just make sure it’s “outside the box”