Ubuntu has invited early adopters to join a crowd-funding ventures as part of its campaign to launch Ubuntu Edge, a hybrid PC and mobile phone platform.
Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Ubuntu, said: "There is an innovation gap."
He claimed that pressure to sell millions of handsets was holding back manufacturers from adopting new technology.
"There isn’t a proving ground for new technology," he said. "Crowd-funding connects innovators with early adopters and spreads risk."
This enables manufacturers to extend a two- to three-year lead on smartphone innovation, according to Shuttleworth. He believes the project would attract funding from enterprises and gadget fans.
"We have a bank who wants to deploy 40,000," he said.
The project aims to develop the Ubuntu Edge, converging a mobile OS and desktop OS in a single device. The funding campaign aims to raise $32m (£21.5m) over 30 days on Indiegogo for a limited production run of 40,000 devices.
He said the goal of the project was to bridge PCs with smartphones.
"We have deep roots in the PC industry. There is strong interest for full convergence between [PC] and mobile devices."
The core specification bridges mobile and PC devices, he explained.
"We will have laptop class storage in a handheld device." He said it will include an unbreakable sapphire screen, dual band LTE and a silicon anode battery.
The Ubuntu Edge will dual boot Ubuntu phone OS and Android, and will transform into a PC when connected to a monitor, with the full Ubuntu desktop and shared access to all the phone’s file
23 Jul 2013