More than 10 million people are estimated to run Ubuntu today, and they represent a threat to Microsoft’s hegemony in developed countries and perhaps even more so in those regions catching up to the technology revolution. Read more here

The notion of a strong Linux-based competitor to Windows and, to a lesser extent, Apple’s Mac OS X has been an enduring dream of advocates of open-source software. They champion the idea that software that can be freely altered by the masses can prove cheaper and better than proprietary code produced by stodgy corporations.

Try as they might, however, Linux zealots have failed in their quest to make Linux mainstream on desktop and notebook computers. The often-quirky software remains in the realm of geeks, not grandmothers.

With Ubuntu, the devotees believe, things might finally be different.