It's been more than a decade since Mark Shuttleworth caught South Africa's imagination by becoming an overnight billionaire, famously giving each of his employees R1 million and spending some of his new-found wealth on a trip into space.
Since then, the IT entrepreneur has largely disappeared off the front covers of our celebrity magazines.
Shuttleworth, now 35, is still making headlines, but these days you're more likely to read them on the Internet, in technology publications or on specialist web forums with hundreds of thousands of followers.
The technology guru has become something of a hero in the world of open-source software by putting his money where his mouth is and continuing to champion the development of Ubuntu, a rapidly growing, free operating system that is rivalling Windows.
Ubuntu is a slick-looking, easy-to-use operating system that comes with all the standard desktop applications, from word processor and spreadsheet to web browser and e-mail, all available free. Not only is it free to download and use, but under the open-source licence the source code is free to view and modify.
And because communities of thousands of developers across the globe collaborate on these open projects, they grow fast. Ubuntu launches a new update every six months, the most recent, version 9.04, being dubbed Jaunty Jackalope, which follows on Hoary Hedgehog and Warty Warthog (clearly these guys have more fun picking their names than the suits behind XP and Vista).
The idea that the basic software that runs our PCs should be free is revolutionising the computer industry, driving down prices and forcing computer giants such as Microsoft to rethink their strategies.
The early days of Ubuntu
"I feel we are in the middle of a revolution," says Shuttleworth, speaking from Canonical's London offices, where he now employs 200 people full-time to support the Ubuntu project.
"This is an extraordinary year for the PC with the emergence of the netbook, which are very cheap but also very mobile. In the past you always paid more for devices that were mobile, whereas the netbooks are proving that we can deliver a really good basic computing experience in a very light form that can slip into a satchel, for a very low price."
This category of cheap, efficient devices is exploding around the world, says Shuttleworth - and open-source software has made it possible. "We're certainly having a huge impact on the industry."
It's estimated that more than 10 million people now run Ubuntu. In the West, Ubuntu is popular with technically savvy users looking for a more secure and user-friendly alternative to Windows. In turn, they often help their parents and grannies install Ubuntu, says Shuttleworth.
"For folks who have a computer they're not very happy with, it's a good idea to try Ubuntu, because they may well find the problems they've been having get fixed - it's faster and lighter, gets on the web easier and it doesn't get viruses and all those sort of problems.
"I find Windows very irritating. People often think they don't have an alternative, that it's just the way PCs are, and that's not true."
Globally, Ubuntu is also hugely popular in educational and government organisations, not only in developing countries but also at leading institutions. Harvard University, for example, is setting up a huge computing infrastructure driven by Ubuntu.
For Shuttleworth, Ubuntu unites three of his passions - investment, technology and social activism.
"This is a substantial investment for me but if I'm right about where the software industry is going, it's a good investment. It also tickles my interest in technology. In Ubuntu we have the very best browser in the world, we have the most secure web capabilities, we have extraordinary programming languages, we have social media tools; sitting on the Ubuntu desktop I'm completely plugged into Facebook and Twitter and all those things. It's very cool, cutting-edge technology.
"And it is also an extraordinary social change. The fact that we can sell a 24/7 support contract to a financial company that is doing mission-critical work and we can also sell that same contract to a school in Bangladesh to train people free of charge, legally, with no piracy - that is amazing social change."
Despite basing himself in London for the past 10 years, for Shuttleworth South Africa will always be home and he regularly visits. (On his most recent visit, he completed the Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour: "It was totally insane. I hadn't been on a bike in 20 years." )
He has strong views on South African politics and in the 2009 elections cast his vote in London, with many other South Africans living abroad.
"I'm proud of the guys who went to the Constitutional Court and proud of the guys for letting us vote. It's important to realise that a good democracy is made up of lots of institutions, and for me that was a great reminder of that," he says.
He remains keenly in touch with the investment and technology climate in South Africa through his venture capital company, HBD, and the charitable Shuttleworth Foundation, both based in South Africa.
The Shuttleworth Foundation is heavily engaged in the telecommunications debate, and Shuttleworth himself is critically outspoken on the topic of the government's failure to roll out broadband fast enough.
"There is an active and excellent technology community in South Africa, but technology has never really risen to the forefront of what the country aspires to," he notes.
"The broadband impact goes much further than just the technology industry, it goes to the heart of business competitiveness. There are very few things that could have as dramatic an impact on the economy as transforming the telecommunications sector in South Africa.
"I think the (digital) divide will be bridged very quickly when we have an aggressive, proactive, deregulated, competition-orientated and investment-orientated telecommunications policy."
The underwater cables being laid along the eastern coast of Africa are encouraging, he says, but the challenge remains in connecting major urban areas and rural environments.
"I was back there (in South Africa) for a month recently and it sort of drove me crazy having such poor bandwidth. Even if you are prepared to pay for bandwidth in South Africa, it's very expensive for very little."
In London, he faces no such problems. He's laying a 1GB line to his Kensington home "not because I need to watch porn in high-definition, just because I want to see how it changes the way we do things."
When not online, Shuttleworth "remains happily roguish". He reads a lot and is contemplating entering a marathon, despite "never having run half that distance" - but he won't be "riding any rockets" in the near future.
"At a personal level I remain a bachelor at large and any change in that would be an adventure in its own right," he says.
So what headlines will we be reading about Shuttleworth in decades to come?
"When you think of a non-human time-scale, our lives are there to be enjoyed. I do what I do because I love it, it's what I feel I was born to do. I have no interest in leaving an imprint on the landscape. I think in 100 years' time I'll be dead and forgotten, and happily so." - Independent Foreign Service