Yes, main reason was for virtualization(Hypervisior) and I remember greg kroah warning the code which they contributed had maintenance problems. That behaviour is expected from windows
>Capitalism - from where you think the money for developing Ubuntu and Linux in general are coming ? Do you really think Linux is developed by people in their free time ? Sorry to break it to you but today's most Linux development is made by people hired by private companies.
Agreed, but joining hands with someone who fight against linux(ubuntu is linux) for patents doesn't make sense.
don't `apt-get install python-virtualenv` use `pip install virtualenv` because `pip` installs latest version, else you are under distro's package maintainer's mercy for update. After `python setup.py publish` only distro's package is updated.
EDIT: Using pip can simply solve py3 and py2 specific features.
Same is the case with me. In work I don't get to code but my work involves around support. I love programming. Once I get back from home I always make sure I read tweets of smart people, read hackerne.ws, reddit, quora and mailing list.
As a result of this I get excited to find some thing interesting out of the above mentioned and start working on my own ideas.
Simple keep following and get updates about people whom consider smart and get to know what they are upto, this pushes you.
I learnt web programming, web application development on my own during college days started with PHP, settled with Python and tried ruby.
How did I learn?
I started with PHP first, writing small scripts and spending time IRC and reading official docs. I attended PHP conference which had prominent minds like creator framwework, Drupal Users etc ...
I created Mini ERP for schools as startup and never launched it.
Then I tried Ruby on Rails and cloned a open source project and modified the source code and fixed bugs (never bothered to submit).
Then I tried Django but wasn't impressed, then I tried Flask and I liked it very much and tried Pylons. Now I am settled with Flask and hacking brubeck occasionally.
Sites I have built:
1. www.sachintweets.in
2. www.iplsaga.in
2. www.pylive.codespeaks.in(currently down)
Web Apps:
1. Gummi - multi user chat room with Flask + Redis
2. Blaze - Static file generator
Takeaway
1. Choose a language and start researching on available web frameworks
2. Attend Conferences.
3. Follow hackers in twitters
4. Subscribe to subreddit
5. Join Mailing list.
6. Use Github and bitbucket.
By creating stuffs which interests you, will answer the question.