Surgut

I have first used Ubuntu in 2006 after having been burned by RedHat in 1999. It was a surprise that it worked, was much faster than my current OS and allowed me to painlessly install / use: GIMP, LaTeX, Emacs and many electronics CAD tools. Later Ubuntu allowed me to learn a lot about Linux through the ubuntuforums, ubuntu irc channels, help / wiki, developer weeks, code review, etc. I have now got an open-source job because I have these skills. Many of the above was either directly or indirectly sponsored by Canonical. From the first CD, to fixing bugs, to code review from exceptional Canonical hackers and of course free training sessions. All interaction I had with Canonical employees was very professional and timely. Heck, I've asked for URL-shortening service for launchpad and we have now as in http://pad.lv/1 . The upstream projects I'm involved in will probably never be part of any revenue questions. And some of them explicitly do not accept donations. I can defiant