So, what Ubuntu is proposing is a low-volume smartphone filled with bleeding edge components and crowdfunded by technology enthusiasts and professionals. That’s why Ubuntu Edge is packed with laptop-level power, a scratchless sapphire crystal screen (only diamond is a harder substance), dual global LTE antennas, and the most effective camera and 4.5-in display that Ubuntu can gets its hands on in the months ahead. The Ubuntu Edge will also feature a main body that is made out of a single piece of textured metal.

Shuttleworth offered up an analogy for what Ubuntu is trying to accomplish:

"In the motor car industry we have Formula One to test new technology but the mobile industry has nothing like that. There's no premium segment for expert drivers. It's like everyone is driving mass-produced sedans. We don't have a consumer test-bed for cutting edge technologies but we do have a new mechanism for driving innovation: crowd-funding. Since the Ubuntu vision of convergence for the phone and the PC will push the limits of mobile computing and since we're working with industry already and since millions of you are passionate about the latest and greatest phone technology -- software and hardware -- we're in a perfect position together to change the way innovation comes to the mobile industry."

The idea is that if Ubuntu can crowdfund some of these advances into an exclusive small-run device that it could also force the larger manufacturers to innovate more quickly in adopting new technologies. Ubuntu doesn’t sound like it actually wants to get into the phone business. It said that it has an experienced contract manufacturer who is producing the Ubuntu Edge.

The question is whether there’s enough cutting edge stuff in the Ubuntu Edge to get technophiles to pay the equivalent of full retail price for a high-end smartphone. There’s also the issue of whether some mainstream phone makers might be able to pre-empt the Ubuntu Edge by pre-announcing or even implementing some of its best features by the time it actually comes to market in 2014.

Image: Canonical Ltd.

3. It wants to smash crowd-funding records (or die trying)

If the Ubuntu Edge is to become a reality, it will have to raise US$32 million in one month’s time.

"To make it happen, we'll have to smash every record in crowd-funding history,” said Shuttleworth. “It's a crazy, beautiful idea."