Since its inception in 2004, Ubuntu has been the beneficiary in what seems like a bottomless money pit for South African entrepreneur, Mark Shuttleworth via his commercial support and development venture, Canonical. How long can anyone keep pumping money into a project that might not ever turn a profit?

Free software, and especially desktop Linux, is a difficult place to run a successful business since your main product is, of course, free. Canonical, though, looks like it might succeed.

South African computer technology distributor Sahara is offering notebooks with pre-installed Linux operating systems. The company added this open-source option to its product range earlier this year, but it is unclear how successful the move has been.

Matthew Szulik, chairman of Red Hat, Inc., was today named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year(R) 2008 overall national winner. He was also named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year(R) 2008 national winner in the Technology category.

Asay's job will be make sure operational activities match up to the company's strategic goals and make sure that day-to-day operations go smoothly. He will also head up Canonical's marketing. Asay is extremely well known and respected in open-source business and technology circles. [However, Pamela Jones takes exception to Asay's defense of Microsoft in her NewsPicks comment on this story. - gus3]

The New York Times ran a story today about Ubuntu and its prospects for beating Microsoft. Focusing on Mark Shuttleworth, the South African billionaire who founded the Ubuntu project and leads Canonical, the Times reporter concludes that the idea of Linux on every desktop remains a bit “quixotic,” and suggests that Ubuntu has only come so far thanks to Shuttleworth’s wealth.

What will make a commercial open source project successful? Unfortunately, most people miss the two basic reasons why software succeeds or fails -- and doom years of development from the start.

He is, without a doubt, the only open source software leader who might be called “dashing.” Young (34), fabulously rich (north of $500 million as of 1999) Mark Shuttleworth buzzes around on his own private jet, the Canonical One. Raised in South Africa, in 2002 he launched the First African in Space mission, training as a cosmonaut and hitching a ride aboard a Russian spaceship.

Today I managed to help a friend in getting his iPod to work with Amarok in PCLinuxOS using this guide. We were successful and he’s happily using Amarok to manage his music as well as his iPod. At the end of all I was left satisfied and suddenly something really random hit me. It just hit me, seriously. What if PCLinuxOS was taken over by Canonical?