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| Type | Private company limited by shares1 |
|---|---|
| Genre | Software Development |
| Founded | 5 March 2004 |
| Founder(s) | Mark Shuttleworth |
| Headquarters | Europe (Registered: Douglas, Isle of Man. Operational HQ: Millbank Tower, London, United Kingdom) |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | Mark Shuttleworth |
| Products | Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Launchpad, Bazaar, TheOpenCD, Gobuntu |
| Revenue | Not released2 |
| Owner | Mark Shuttleworth |
| Employees | 200+3 |
| Subsidiaries | Canonical UK Ltd. |
| Website | www.canonical.com |
| Formerly "M R S Virtual Development Ltd"4 | |
Canonical Ltd.5 is a private company founded (and funded) by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth for the promotion of free software projects. Canonical is registered in the Isle of Man and employs staff around the world, along with its main offices in London, support office in Montreal and OEM team in Lexington, Massachusetts, USA.6
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Projects sponsored by Canonical
Canonical Ltd continues to back and has created several projects. Principally these are Free/Open source software (FOSS) or tools designed to improve collaboration between Free Software developers and contributors.
Open source software
- The Ubuntu family of Linux distributions:
- Ubuntu7, a Debian-based Linux distribution with a GNOME desktop.
- Kubuntu8, the Ubuntu core system with the KDE desktop in place of Gnome.
- Xubuntu, the Ubuntu core system with the lightweight Xfce desktop in place of Gnome.
- Edubuntu9, the Ubuntu core improved specifically for educational or thin-client environments.
- Gobuntu, a stripped variant of Ubuntu consisting entirely of free software.
- Ubuntu JeOS, an efficient variant of Ubuntu configured specifically for virtual appliances.
- Bazaar10, a decentralized revision control system.
- OpenCD (now defunct), a collection of high quality free and open-source software compiled for users of Microsoft Windows. The programs come with an easy-to-use graphical installer and run under Microsoft Windows and cover most tasks. Examples are the GIMP, OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox and PDF creation software.
- Storm, an object-relational mapper for Python11, part of the Launchpad codebase.
- Upstart - an event-based replacement for the init daemon
Promotion activities
- Software Freedom Day, which is held on the third Saturday of each September. Canonical Ltd was the primary sponsor for 2005-2006.
- Go Open Source, a South African campaign to create awareness of, educate about, and provide access to open-source software. It is important, once awareness of OSS has been created, that interested parties have the ability to gain access to the software and services, and that they have access to additional resources for support and training. It ran from May 2004 to May 2006.
- Geek Freedom League, The Freedom League is a South African project designed to bring together the best of the open source world and the massive country-wide community of people driven to introduce as many new people as possible to the use of open source software. Anyone with the passion and ability can sign-up and receive all the materials needed to convert as many people and computers as possible. People will be able to log their installs and track their progress.12
- Freedom Toaster, kiosk-style machines located in South Africa designed to avoid costly and prohibitive download costs. Users provide their own blank CD media and after insertion they can choose a Linux distribution of their choice to take home.
Proprietary projects
- Landscape 13, a tool for managing large numbers of Ubuntu-based systems via a web-browser.
- Launchpad14 a centralised website containing several component web applications designed to make collaboration between Free Software projects easier:
- Rosetta, an online language translation tool to help localisation of software (cf. the Rosetta Stone).
- Malone (as in "Bugsy Malone"), a collaborative bug-tracker that allows linking to other bug-trackers.
- Soyuz, a tool for creating custom-distributions, such as Kubuntu and Xubuntu.
- Code - hosting of Bazaar branches
- Answers - support tracker
- Blueprints - a tool for planning features of software
- PPA - personal package archives
Business plans
In a Guardian interview in May 2008, Mark Shuttleworth said that the Canonical business model was service provision, and explained that Canonical was not yet close to profitability and regarded Canonical as positioning itself as demand for services related to Free Software rose.15 This strategy has been compared to Red Hat's business strategies in the 1990s.16
Employees
Current
Notable current employees of Canonical include:
- Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu project, former Debian maintainer of Apache and founder of Thawte Consulting (2004–).
- Matt Zimmerman, formerly of the Debian security team. Now Canonical/Ubuntu Chief Technical Officer (2004–).
- Scott James Remnant, formerly a Debian and GNU maintainer of GNU Libtool and co-author of the Planet aggregator. At Canonical, he has developed Upstart (2004–).
- Jono Bacon, of LugRadio fame. Canonical's new Ubuntu community leader. (2006–)
- Ben Collins, former Debian Project Leader and kernel developer. (2006–).
- Lars Wirzenius, first contributor to the Linux kernel and Linus Torvalds' former office mate. (2007–)
Past
Notable past employees:
- Dave Miller, known for Bugzilla, employee no. 1 (2004).
- Jeff Waugh, employee no. 3 of GNOME and Planet-fame, Business Development (2004–2006).
- Benjamin Mako Hill, Core developer and Community Coordinator (2004–2005).
- Ian Jackson, developer of dpkg and former Debian Project Leader (2005–2007).
Offices
Canonical started as a wholly virtual organisation with employees working from home. The company now maintains a facility on the 27th floor of the Millbank Tower near Westminster, London.17 In the summer of 2006 Canonical opened an office in Montreal to house its global support and services operation.16
References
- ^ The Isle of Man Companies Registry, Annual Return 2005 for Company no. 110334C (non-distributable, available for a fee of £1.00)
- ^ Kirk, Jeremy (2007-10-09). "Canonical chases deals to ship Ubuntu Server preinstalled", IDG News Service. Retrieved on 12 December 2007. "But enlargement of its enterprise support business could bring more contracts to Canonical, which is not yet profitable but does not release revenue figures."
- ^ "About us". Canonical Ltd. http://canonical.com/aboutus. Retrieved on 2008-10-10. "Founded in late 2004, Canonical Ltd is a company headquartered in Europe with over 200 employees working in 23 countries (and counting)."
- ^ "Company no. 110334C". The Isle of Man Companies Registry. http://portal.gov.im/pvi/CompanyDetails.aspx?company=110334C. Retrieved on 2005-05-18. "[ Previous names: ] M R S VIRTUAL DEVELOPMENT LIMITED [ Name type: ] PREVIOUS"
- ^ UK registered trademark #E4059218 "CANONICAL", filed 2004–09–29.
- ^ "Sylvania brings new Atom-based netbook to market in record time with Ubuntu Netbook Remix". Canonical Ltd.. 2008-08-19. http://blog.canonical.com/?p=29. Retrieved on 2008-09-19. "In the OEM Services team at Canonical, primarily based in Lexington, MA and Taipei, Taiwan, we engage with manufacturers to produce images of Ubuntu specific to their hardware"
- ^ UK registered trademark #E4059119 "UBUNTU", filed 2004–09–29.
- ^ UK registered trademark #E4541661 "KUBUNTU", filed 2005–07–08.
- ^ UK registered trademark #E4541678 "EDUBUNTU", filed 2005–07–08.
- ^ UK registered trademark #E5152467 "BAZAAR", filed 2006–06–21.
- ^ Canonical Releases Storm as Open Source |Ubuntu
- ^ :: Home |Geek Freedom League
- ^ UK registered trademark #E5152418 "LANDSCAPE", filed 2006–06–21, published 2007–08–06.
- ^ UK registered trademark #E6251219 "LAUNCHPAD", filed 2007–09–04.
- ^ Moody, Glyn (2008-05-22). "'Linux is a platform for people, not just specialists'", The Guardian. Retrieved on 23 May 2008.
- ^ a b Shankland, Stephen. Canonical seeks profit from free Ubuntu, C|NET, 2006-10-06. Retrieved on 2007-10-19.
- ^ http://bazaar-vcs.org/SprintLondonMay07 ("Where?")
External links
- Canonical.com, official site
- Ubuntu.com, Ubuntu home page
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 27 December 2008, at 03:27.
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