I just heard some great news today: the Kubuntu distribution has financial sponsorship from version 12.10! Blue Systems, a sponsor of a number of other KDE-based projects, has stepped forward and will be employing Jonathan Riddell from May, when he steps down from his position at Canonical.

Kubuntu will continue to be a community-driven project (as it has always been) and Riddell will continue to be employed full time to work on Kubuntu. With this momentum, Kubuntu will continue to be one of the world's leading distributions, and the distribution who can boast to being used for the biggest rollout of desktop Linux in the world.

Kubuntu also boasts the first tablet-focused distribution, with the Kubuntu Active flavour hopefully being release later this year.

With this new sponsorship, and independence from Canonical, the Kubuntu team hopes to give Kubuntu new wings, and take it to new heights with KDE and Linux.