'Canonical Turns 20: Shaping the Ubuntu Linux World'

'2004 was already an eventful year for Linux,' writes ZDNet's Jack Wallen. 'As I reported at the time, SCO was trying to drive Linux out of business. Red Hat was abandoning Linux end-user fans for enterprise customers by closing down Red Hat Linux 9 and launching the business-friendly Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Oh, and South African tech millionaire and astronaut Mark Shuttleworth [also a Debian Linux developer] launched Canonical, Ubuntu Linux's parent company.

'Little did I — or anyone else — suspect that Canonical would become one of the world's major Linux companies.'

Mark Shuttleworth answered questions from Slashdot reader in 2005 and again in 2012. And this year, Canonical celebrates its 20th anniversary. ZDNet reports:
Canonical's purpose, from the beginning, was to support and share free software and open-source software... Then, as now, Ubuntu was based on Debian Linux. Unlike Debian, which never met a delivery deadline it couldn't miss, Ubuntu was set to be updated to the latest desktop, kernel, and infrastructure with a new release every six months. Canonical has kept to that cadence — except for the Ubuntu 6.06 release — for 20 years now...

Released in October 2004, Ubuntu Linux quickly became synonymous with ease of use, stability, and security, bridging the gap between the power of Linux and the usability demanded by end users. The early years of Canonical were marked by rapid innovation and community building. The Ubuntu community, a vibrant and passionate group of developers and users, became the heart and soul of the project. Forums, wikis, and IRC channels buzzed with activity as people from all over the world came together to contribute code, report bugs, write documentation, and support each other....

Canonical's influence extends beyond the desktop. Ubuntu Linux, for example, is the number one cloud operating system. Ubuntu started as a community desktop distribution, but it's become a major enterprise Linux power [also widely use as a server and Internet of Things operating system.]

The article notes Canonical's 2011 creation of the Unity desktop. ('While Ubuntu Unity still lives on — open-source projects have nine lives — it's now a sideline. Ubuntu renewed its commitment to the GNOME desktop...')

But the article also argues that '2016, on the other hand, saw the emergence of Ubuntu Snap, a containerized way to install software, which --along with its rival Red Hat's Flatpak — is helping Linux gain some desktop popularity.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.