The only conclusion I can draw is that the audience that Ubuntu attracts are not your usual "computer-savvy" user who has no problem reinstalling something, switching distros or even forking a distribution. They obviously seem to want something that just works, which is not the product Mark Shuttleworth supplies.

At the Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) today in Florida, Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth announced that the Unity shell will become Ubuntu's default user interface across both the desktop and netbook editions. Unity, which was introduced as the new netbook interface in the recent Ubuntu 10.10 release, will arrive on the desktop in Ubuntu 11.04 next year.

Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has big dreams for Linux. That shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who's been following the progress of Ubuntu, which releases a major update every six months and keeps getting more and more user friendly. But user friendly is just the beginning. Shuttleworth wants Linux to be prettier too.

Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth is bullish on PCs exposing millions of consumers to Linux – despite the industry succumbing to Jobsian tablet fever. Shuttleworth reckons that Ubuntu is approaching a tipping point among the ordinary PC-buying public, with the distro shipping on a record (for Ubuntu) five million machines this year.

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.

Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth revealed plans Friday for Ubuntu 9.10, which will be codenamed Karmic Koala. The developers plan to bring cloud capabilities to Ubuntu's server edition, boost startup performance on the desktop, and continue work on the distro's netbook flavor.

Ubuntu 11.04 Beta 1 has been released today and iso images are now available to download. Ubuntu 11.04, is coming up with an entirely new shell for Gnome desktop - Unity, which was default for netbook edition in Ubuntu 10.10 and was based on Mutter.

CIO.com asked the lead guys for each distro about its suitability for business use. Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu Project, says that besides ease of use for end users, Ubuntu is cost-effective and even eliminates per-seat license costs entirely, on both the desktop and the server.

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