Canonical Ltd.
Canonical Ltd
|
| Type |
Private company limited by shares[1] |
| Genre |
Software Development |
| Founded |
5 March 2004 |
| Founder(s) |
Mark Shuttleworth |
| Headquarters |
Millbank Tower, London, United Kingdom |
| Area served |
Worldwide |
| Key people |
Mark Shuttleworth
Jane Silber |
| Products |
Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Launchpad, Bazaar, Landscape, Ubuntu One, Upstart |
| Revenue |
$30 million (2009)[2] |
| Employees |
400+[3][4] |
| Subsidiaries |
Canonical Group Ltd [5]
Canonical USA Inc.
Canonical China Ltd (Chinese: 科能软件股份有限公司)
Canonical Brasil Ltda
Canonical Canada Ltd
Canonical Ltd Taiwan Br. (Chinese: 英屬曼島商肯諾有限公司臺灣分公司) |
| Website |
www.canonical.com |
| References: Formerly "M R S Virtual Development Ltd"[6] |
Canonical Ltd.[7] is a private company founded (and funded) by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth to market commercial support and related services for Ubuntu Linux and related projects. Canonical is registered in London and employs staff around the world. Its main offices are in London, its support office in Montreal, and its OEM team in Lexington, Massachusetts, USA and Taipei, Taiwan.[8]
Projects created or maintained by Canonical
Canonical Ltd. has created and continues to back 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
Projects and services
- Landscape,[14] a proprietary web service for centralized management of Ubuntu systems.
- Launchpad[15] 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
- Ubuntu One, a closed-source service for file synchronisation and other uses where the server side software remains closed. Canonical was criticized by some users for abuse[16][17][18] of the Ubuntu trademark for commercial exploitation, launching a proprietary service and going back on the Ubuntu promise to keep it free.
- Canonical supplies some of the core engineering to Linaro which invests in upstream projects.
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. Canonical also claimed it will wait for the business to turn into a profitable one within another 3 to 5 years. He regarded Canonical as positioning itself as demand for services related to Free Software rose.[19] This strategy has been compared to Red Hat's business strategies in the 1990s.[20] However, in an early 2009 New York Times article, Shuttleworth said that Canonical's revenue was "creeping" towards $30 million, the company's break-even point.[21]
In 2007, Canonical launched an International online shop selling support services and Ubuntu branded goods; later in 2008 expanding it with a United States-specific shop designed to reduce shipment times.[22] At the same time, the word Ubuntu was trademarked in connection with clothing and accessories.[23]
Contributor agreement
Contributing source code to projects funded by Canonical requires signing of Canonical's contributor agreement, which assigns copyright to Canonical, and allows the re-release of software under another license.[24]
Subsidiaries
Employees
Canonical has over 400 employees[3] with main offices on the 27th floor of Millbank Tower near Westminster, London.[25] In the summer of 2006, Canonical opened an office in Montreal to house its global support and services operation.[20] Taipei 101 is also home to a Canonical office.[26] There is also an OEM team in Lexington, Massachusetts.[3]
Current
Notable current employees of Canonical include:
Past
Notable past employees:
- Ben Collins, former Debian Project Leader and kernel developer (2006–2009)
- Dave Miller, known for Bugzilla, employee no. 1 (2004)
- Jeff Waugh, employee no. 3, GNOME and Planet aggregator developer, 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)
- Lars Wirzenius, first contributor to the Linux kernel and Linus Torvalds' former office mate (2007–2009)
- 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 (2004–2011).[27]
- Matt Zimmerman, formerly of the Debian security team. Now Canonical/Ubuntu Chief Technical Officer (2004–2011).[28]
References
- ^ The Isle of Man Companies Registry, Annual Return 2005 for Company no. 110334C (non-distributable, available for a fee of £1.00)
- ^ Vance, Ashlee (2009-01-11). "Ubuntu and its Leader Set Sights on the Mainstream". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/business/11ubuntu.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1. Retrieved 2010-04-28.
- ^ a b c "Canonical: About Canonical". Canonical Ltd.. http://www.canonical.com/about-canonical. Retrieved 2010-07-26. "We now have over 400 staff in more than 30 countries, and offices in London, Boston, Taipei, Montreal and the Isle of Man."
- ^ "Ubuntu: Canonical's New CEO Discusses Top Priorities". TheVarGuy. http://www.thevarguy.com/2010/03/04/ubuntu-canonicals-new-ceo-discloses-top-priorities/. Retrieved 2010-03-05. "3. On Canonical’s Size and Financial Performance: Canonical now has about 320 employees.."
- ^ "Canonical Group Limited". Companies House. http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/9997671e24728571142fd0f173c68da2/compdetails. Retrieved 2010-01-07. "Company No. 06870835"
- ^ "Company no. 110334C". The Isle of Man Companies Registry. http://portal.gov.im/pvi/CompanyDetails.aspx?company=110334C. Retrieved 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 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
- ^ UK registered trademark #E5152418 "LANDSCAPE", filed 2006–06–21, published 2007–08–06.
- ^ UK registered trademark #E6251219 "LAUNCHPAD", filed 2007–09–04.
- ^ http://blog.ibeentoubuntu.com/2009/05/about-ubuntuone-post-that-is-sure-to.html /
- ^ http://lwn.net/Articles/333073/
- ^ https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntuone-servers/+bug/375345
- ^ Moody, Glyn (2008-05-22). "'Linux is a platform for people, not just specialists'". London: The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/may/22/internet.software. Retrieved 2008-05-23.
- ^ a b Shankland, Stephen. Canonical seeks profit from free Ubuntu, C|NET, 2006-10-06. Retrieved on 2007-10-19.
- ^ "A Software Populist Who Doesn’t Do Windows". The New York Times. 2009-01-11. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/business/11ubuntu.html. Retrieved 2010-11-08.
- ^ "Canonical launches U.S.-based shop.ubuntu.com in time for holiday season". Canonical Ltd.. 2008-11-18. http://www.ubuntu.com/news/us-based-shop. Retrieved 2009-02-09. "an U.S.-based on-line shop for Ubuntu-branded merchandise and software. With a new fulfillment house in St. Louis, Missouri, shipments are faster and less expensive"
- ^ "UK registered trademark #E7426265". UK Intellectual Property Office. 2008-11-27. http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ohim?ohimnum=E7426265. Retrieved 2009-02-09. "Mark text: UBUNTU ... Class 16: Stationery; ... Class 18: Luggage; ... Class 25: Articles of clothing ... CANONICAL LIMITED"
- ^ http://www.canonical.com/contributors
- ^ http://bazaar-vcs.org/SprintLondonMay07 ("Where?")
- ^ http://www.flickr.com/photos/37452853@N00/3479931232/
- ^ Remnant, Scott James, Leaving Canonical, accessed 2011-01-22
- ^ http://blog.canonical.com/?p=566
External links