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.

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.

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 next red-letter day for Ubuntu fans will be April 24, when Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Long Term Support) arrives. Mark Shuttleworth, the CEO of Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, guarantees that the next version of the popular Linux distribution will make it on time, with something for enterprise, desktop, and Internet users.

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.

During a phone briefing today, Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth described the Ubuntu 9.10 desktop, server and cloud strategy to members of the IT media. WorksWithU tuned in and posed some key questions to Shuttleworth. Here are 10 highlights from the call.

I really liked this InformationWeek article with Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu. I liked it in part because I think Mark is an exceptional person. But I also liked it for its insight into why Ubuntu has done so well.

With more than 8 million users, Ubuntu Linux is among the most popular Linux distributions. As new Linux release nears, founder Mark Shuttleworth explains his company's plan for profitability.

Canonical's leader Mark Shuttleworth has recently chimed in on an important aspect of desktop computing when it comes to Linux. Going over the role that Linux plays on the desktop and where its future lies, Shuttleworth specifically commented on a question issued about Wine – which as many of you may know, is the most popular way of running Windows-based programs on Linux.