Wikipedia:
Canonical Ltd.
| Canonical Ltd.[1] | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Type | Private company limited by shares[2] |
| Genre | Software Development |
| Founded | 2004-03-05 |
| Founder | 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 | $10m+ [citation needed] |
| Owner | Mark Shuttleworth |
| Employees | 130 [3] |
| Subsidiaries | Canonical UK Ltd. |
| Website | www.canonical.com |
| Formerly "M R S Virtual Development Ltd". | |
Canonical Ltd. 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
their main offices in London and support office in
Projects sponsored by Canonical
Canonical Ltd continues to back and has created several projects. Principally these are Free Software/Open Source software or tools designed to improve collaboration between Free Software developers and contributors.
Open source software
- The Ubuntu family of GNU/Linux distributions:
- Ubuntu[4], a Debian-based Linux distribution with a GNOME desktop.
- Kubuntu[5], the KDE desktop on top of the Ubuntu core system.
- Xubuntu, the Xfce desktop on top of the Ubuntu core system.
- Edubuntu[6], the Ubuntu core improved specifically for educational or thin-client environments.
- Gobuntu, a stripped variant of Ubuntu consisting entirely of free software.
- Bazaar[7], a decentralized revision control system.
- OpenCD, 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 and PDF creation software.
- Storm, an object-relational mapper for Python[8], part of the Launchpad codebase.
Promotion activities
- Software Freedom Day
- 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.[9]
- 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 GNU/Linux distribution of their choice to take home.
Proprietary projects
- Landscape[10], a tool for managing large numbers of Ubuntu-based systems via a web-browser.
- Launchpad[11] 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.
- Hosting of Bazaar branches
Employees
- Notable current employees of Canonical include
- Mark Shuttleworth, founder and self-styled "SABDFL" 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–)
- Ian Jackson, developer of dpkg and former Debian Project Leader (2005–).
- 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–)
- Notable past employees
- Jeff Waugh, employee no. 3 of GNOME and Planet-fame, Business Development (2004–2006).
- Benjamin Mako Hill, Core developer and Community Coordinator (2004–2005).
Offices
Canonical originally 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.[citation needed] In the summer of 2006 Canonical opened an office in
References
- ^ UK registered trademark #E4059218 "CANONICAL", filed 2004–09–29.
- ^ The Isle of Man Companies Registry, Annual Return 2005 for Company no. 110334C (non-distributable, available for a fee of £1.00)
- ^ http://canonical.com/aboutus
- ^ 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.
- ^ http://www.ubuntu.com/news/storm-python-orm-open-sourced
- ^ http://www.go-opensource.org/freedom/what-is-the-freedom-league.html
- ^ UK registered trademark #E5152418 "LANDSCAPE", filed 2006–06–21, published 2007–08–06.
- ^ UK registered trademark #E6251219 "LAUNCHPAD", filed 2007–09–04.
- ^ Shankland, Stephen. Canonical seeks profit from free Ubuntu, C|NET, 2006-10-06. Retrieved on 2007-10-19.
External links
- Canonical.com, official site
- Ubuntu.com, Ubuntu home page
| Ubuntu-based Linux distributions and derivatives | |
|---|---|
| Partner Projects | Ubuntu · Edubuntu · Gobuntu · Kubuntu · Ubuntu Studio · Xubuntu |
| External | Copland · Fluxbuntu · Freespire · gNewSense · Gnoppix · Guadalinex · ImpiLinux · Linux Mint · LinuxTLE · Molinux · Mythbuntu · Nexenta OS · nUbuntu · Symphony OS · Ubuntu Christian Edition · Ubuntu Lite · |
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