Mark Shuttleworth made news in 2002 when he fulfilled a lifelong ambition and became the first South African to travel into space, paying $20 million to be a civilian cosmonaut on an eight-day flight aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. In 2004, he founded Ubuntu Linux to bring the operating system to people around the world.

I’m a fan of Ubuntu Linux, and think that Mark Shuttleworth is a good guy. However, to many in the Linux community, the South African entrepreneur is a rock star, a god. What’s more, Ubuntu Linux is seen by many as the first, and only, Linux distribution that might have a shot at gaining market share on the desktop.

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.

Ubuntu founder and IT entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth tells Computing SA that picking open source software was not only good for South Africa but also important for the rest of the African continent.

Canonical isn't making a profit, but founder Mark Shuttleworth isn't too worried about it. He's still got lots of money left from when he sold his security company, Thawte, to VeriSign.

When you have Mark Shuttleworth as your backer, as commercial Linux distributor Canonical does, it is a bit like having money in the bank when the bank also believes fervently in your cause.

The sky is falling! Mark Shuttleworth, the same person who founded what is probably the most popular Linux distribution and has essentially been betting his time and money that desktop Linux can turn a profit, said today in an interview that 'I don't think anyone can make money from the Linux desktop.'; Or did he'?

Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, announced in his blog that Canonical will be "hiring a team who will work on X, OpenGL, Gtk, Qt, GNOME and KDE, with a view to doing some of the heavy lifting required to turn those desktop experience ideas into reality." "Those desktop experiences ideas" are Ubuntu's design ideas.

Canonical, the commercial backer of the Linux-based Ubuntu operating system, is not yet turning a profit, but founder Mark Shuttleworth said Monday during a teleconference that he is prepared to bankroll the company for three to five more years.