Ubuntu-Maker Canonical Joins Linux Foundation

Ubuntu distributor Canonical has joined the Linux Foundation, bringing more of a desktop consumer point of view to the enterprise Linux-dominated organization.

Ubuntu has taken on an increasingly important role with its focus on desktops, Windows compatibility, and ease of installation. Mark Shuttleworth founded the Ubuntu project in 2004 to get Linux established as a low-cost education system in South Africa, then built Canonical to support it. He still serves on its technical board.

Canonical's enlistment marks the second new member the foundation has gained in August. On Aug. 8, VMware, the virtual software market leader, announced it was becoming a member of the foundation.

The Linux Foundation is the vendor-neutral employer of Linus Torvalds, Linux originator and lead developer. The foundation also supervises the Linux Standard Base, a set of standards and specifications for the Linux kernel that is followed by the Linux distributors.

"We look forward to working with them to continue the march of Linux in all areas of computing," Canonical CTO Matt Zimmerman said in a foundation statement. Zimmerman noted that Ubuntu community members are already participants in foundation workgroups, such as the one adding to the Linux Standard Base and one for porting device drivers that have just become available for Linux back into the older versions of the operating system already in use. Ubuntu work on drivers has been critical to Ubuntu's ease of installation on many Windows machines.

"Matt and his team have created an exciting distribution that has taken the world by storm," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the foundation, in announcing the new member.

The foundation already includes Novell, distributor of SUSE Linux, which supplies an enterprise version of the operating system, along with member Red Hat. MontaVista is a telecommunications and embedded system supplier, along with Oracle, which supplies a version configured with its database.

The Linux Foundation also includes early Linux backers from the hardware field, such as Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, IBM, Intel, and NEC. The addition of Canonical and VMware this month brings the foundation's membership to 47. Forty-three are dues-paying vendor members, and four are affiliate members, such as Oulu University of Applied Sciences in Finland and the Open Source Community Lab.

Vendor sponsors who join at the platinum $500,000 annual level get a seat on the board of directors. They include Fujitsu, HP, Hitachi, IBM, Intel, NEC, Novell, and Oracle.

Gold members pay $100,000 a year and include Advanced Micro Devices, Cisco, ETRI, Google, Motorola, and NetApp.

The 30 silver members, including VMware and Canonical, pay $5,000 to $20,000 annually, according to information on the foundation's Web site. The dues level for silver members is set by the number of employees in their organizations.