The open source community needs a federated but decentralized system for tracking bugs and patches, according to Mark Shuttleworth. Speaking in a keynote address at the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit in Sunnyvale this week, the amateur astronaut and Ubuntu founder called for better collaboration among open source developers and companies.

Another conference, another sexist comment in a keynote speech by a leader in the open source community. And September was going so well!

I just sent the following to Mark Shuttleworth, founder and leader of the Ubuntu Linux project. [...]

Mark Shuttleworth, Founder of Canonical (maker of the Ubuntu Linux Distribution) spoke with me at the PyCon 2010 Python conference in Atlanta, GA.

Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth on Oct. 26 is set to speak with the press about Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop Edition and Server Edition. WorksWithU will be extra careful not to "hype" Ubuntu 9.10 over the next few days. Instead, we hope to ask Shuttleworth some timely questions about the new Ubuntu and Canonical's long-term business strategy. Here's a sampling of issues on our mind.

Who's afraid of patents? Not Mark Shuttleworth founder of Ubuntu Linux and CEO of Canonical. He figures he's 'REALLY' got it covered.

Collaboration is the soul of open source. At the Linux Foundation's annual Collaboration Summit in San Francisco, which ended last Friday, the organization unveiled new collaboration tools hosted on its website for forming and maintaining workgroups to tackle the problems that remain on Linux's horizon.

The Linux Foundation plans to hold an End User Collaboration Summit in New York City in October. The press release we received introducing the event said, "It's by invitation, but registration is free, in keeping with the idea of opening it to 'real' end users.

Mark Shuttleworth has joined into the discussion on Debian release cycles; it's a rather lengthy attempt to make peace.

Guest commentator Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols of Ziff Davis Enterprise tells what, in his opinion, is important about the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit going on right now in Austin, Texas.