Ubuntu

Canonical's business model is centered on providing professional services and commercial support for the Ubuntu ecosystem while keeping the operating system itself free and open-source for all users. Revenue is generated through several key streams. A primary source is paid support subscriptions for enterprises using Ubuntu in production environments, particularly for servers and cloud deployments. The company also offers "Ubuntu Pro," a subscription service that expands security coverage and provides compliance tools for a vast range of open-source packages, available for workstations and servers at an annual fee. Additional revenue comes from partnerships with hardware manufacturers (OEMs) like Dell, HP, and Lenovo, who pre-install Ubuntu on their devices, and from major public cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, where Ubuntu is a highly popular guest operating system. For the fiscal year 2023, Canonical reported revenues of $251 million, a significant increase from previous years.

The core product, the Ubuntu operating system, is distributed in several editions tailored for different markets: Desktop, Server, and Core for Internet of Things (IoT) and robotics. It is known for its predictable release cycle, issuing new versions every six months and a Long-Term Support (LTS) version every two years. LTS versions are crucial for the enterprise market, offering five years of free security updates, which can be extended up to ten years through a paid Ubuntu Pro subscription. Ubuntu has become one of the most widely used Linux distributions, particularly dominant in the public cloud and among developers. It powers a significant portion of web servers and is the reference operating system for the OpenStack cloud computing project. Its adoption extends to large-scale deployments, including government bodies like the French Gendarmerie Nationale and the Indian justice system.