“Linux powers the web, powers the new social media and 'data' companies like Facebook, Google and Yahoo!”

Q> How do you find the Linux market in India? Do you have any major success stories of Ubuntu in India?

Ubuntu has grown by over 100 % in the last year in India. We have very large state governments that have deployed Ubuntu: Assam, Gujarat, West Bengal and Kerala. We have Redbus.in, Justdial and many other companies now using Ubuntu.

Q> How big is the Ubuntu community from India? What sort of contributions are they doing for the distro?

It's hard to judge the size of community, however we have community members located in the big cities to the small towns. The community is very vibrant, they are usually very fast in responding to requests for local hardware such as data card and 3G dongles. Because of this, Ubuntu has the best support for hardware. The community are filing bug reports, helping people install Ubuntu, hold release parties, conduct training and more.

Q> What according to you are the major successes and failures of Linux? Where do you think it has really had an impact, and where does it still have a long way to go?

Linux has had huge success in the datacentre, replacing effectively Unix as the OS of choice for server and back end processing. It powers the web, it powers the new social media and 'data' companies like FaceBook, Google and Yahoo! for instance. Without it, none of the recent most highly valued IT organisations in the world would have been possible, so it has profoundly changed the world's economy and the way we lead our lives every day. It does and will increasingly power the cloud, a space where Ubuntu is very strong and that has the capability to bring the next step-change in the availability and efficiency of processing power that will provide innovations we have yet to see.

Where Linux has not succeeded yet (although this is changing) is in the adoption by the mainstream of the operating system on consumer devices, whether PCs, tablets or other types of electronics. This is shifting. With Ubuntu pushing on the PC and Android pushing on the smartphone and lots of activity happening on converged technologies like tablets, the charge is on for widespread adoption of Linux-derived products in these areas. I say Linux derived as I don't think there is a groundswell of demand for Linux per se, but for cheaper, faster, better, legally connected products everywhere from the phone to the car to the humble toaster. Linux is best placed to provide a cost-effective solution to meet that demand.

Q> A philosophical question --Linux has completed 20 years. What do you think would the next 20 years be like for it?

Driving the Cloud, on people's wrists, on their laps, in their phones, in their cars - connected across the ether and making for a very different, more innovative and interesting technology world than we have seen before.

Q> Are there some truly remarkable achievements of Ubuntu deployments that you can share?

Avatar (and King Kong) was built on a 37,000 node render farm in New Zealand which is amazing. 1.3M South African schoolkids get their access to the world of technology though Ubuntu every day. Nearly every soldier in Brazil uses Ubuntu. Every day, many millions of questions are answered every day on Wikipedia and Quora and the reliability of those questions being available is based on Ubuntu. Every day thousands of start-ups rely on Ubuntu to underpin their business on the world's public clouds. Every buzz being recorded for Britain's Got Talent relies on Ubuntu to serve their needs. These could be large scale deployments, very complex ones, or maybe very innovative ones.