Holy smokes, 20 years of Canonical and Ubuntu...

Wow, 20 years ago Canonical sprung into life...and it completely changed my own life.

While I didn't join in 2004, I came along a few years later...Canonical captured the interest of the early British open source community with @ubuntu .

At the time I was a journalist, writing for Linux Format, Linux Magazine, Linux User & Developer and others, I was building a community in the UK called Linux UK...and I spent my days helping companies move to open source at OpenAdvantage (a small government-funded consultancy.)

These were the earlier days of the commercialization of Linux...and we all hankered for the same thing: a distro focused on (1) simplicity and ease of use, (2) technical brilliance, and (3) a strong commitment to community and building something great together.

Back then, most distros had some of either but none had all three...and then Ubuntu came along (in brown).

I instantly became a fan. It was early, it was ugly, but it innovated...and it innovated with a cheeky smile for trying something new. I was hooked.

I could see the huge potential, and I wanted to be part of it.

I had gotten to know Mark Shuttleworth a little via some events and I had heard he was hiring for an 'Ubuntu Community Manager'. I had never seen a 'community manager' job before.

I emailed him to feel out whether I might be a fit and he said, "I am not sure if this is the right job for you". Maybe he was right? ??

...but I knew in my gut that I could do it...I just needed him to give me a shot.

A few months later after a series of discussions...he offered me the job...and the ride of a lifetime started.

We built a community of millions of users, hundreds of thousands of developers, docs writers, translators, event organizers, and more...all over the world.

The job took me across Europe, the Americas, Asia, and beyond...and I met truly inspiring people from all walks of life.

Our community did AMAZING things: packaging thousands of applications, building a whole set of apps for Ubuntu Phone, translating Ubuntu into hundreds of languages, running a global network of local user groups, working closely with our friends in Debian and upstream projects every single day...it was awe-inspiring.

My job was simple: streamline how good people build great things, keep them motivated, solve their problems, and tell their stories.

I am tremendously proud of the community we built around Canonical, and I had an amazing team of people including Michael Hall , Jorge Castro , Daniel Holbach , David Planella , Nicholas Skaggs , Alan Pope , and others...

...but what made Ubuntu so special in my time there was the genuine sense of connection we had with our community.

We were like a family...we loved each other...but we would argue...but EVERY time we debated or disagreed it was from a position of respect and finding common ground.

Even when I wrote an April Fools post saying our biggest critic was fake and I was pretending to be him all along (trololol)...he took it in the spirit it was intended...and that to me underlined a mutual respect within each other (even in the thick of fierce disagreements.)

But more personally, I have huge thanks to Mark Shuttleworth and Jane Silber for giving me a shot. It changed my life in a number of different ways, and I will always be grateful.

Here's to Ubuntu...here's to Canonical...and here's to the freedom to move the damn window buttons to the other side. ??