ImpiLinux
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Impi Linux is a South African Linux distribution based on Ubuntu, which focuses on the enterprise and government sector.
The project name originally referred to Impi meaning war in the Zulu language.
In September 2005, Mark Shuttleworth invested R10 million in return for 65% of ImpiLinux.
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[edit] Company History
Impi Linux has a long history, but has managed to transform from an open source project into a successful company. The project started from a discussion on the South African, Gauteng Linux Users Group, GLUG. The first meeting in late 2001 was held at Andre Coetzee's home and got the project off to a slow start with more discussions around the name of the distro than that of its, would be, technical merits. Interestingly, one of the names initially put forward was Ubuntu. Attendees of the first meeting were: Andre Truter, Ross Addis, then chairman of GLUG, Andre Coetzee of Cubit Accounting, Craig Main, Mischa Capazario, Eugene Grimsdell, Norio De Souza, Andrew McGill, Laurens Steenkamp and others, all members of GLUG.
Impi Linux's first release, version 1, was(released 1 November 2003) with much fanfare in the South African media due to Impi Linux claiming to be the first desktop Linux distribution to come from South Africa. A few other companies provided sponsorships in the form of professional media and public relations from MIP Holdings as well as bandwidth and an FTP mirror from Internet Solutions.
The first release of Impi Linux was not widely adopted due to many technical faults and an immature installation routine. It did, however, show that South Africans were capable of producing Open Source software and had a profound impact on the South African Government in terms of their move to adopting Linux and Open Source software.[citation needed]
In October of 2004, following the release of version 2, Andre Coetzee started identifying potential partners and investors and engaged with a recently listed technology company then called Xantium. Xantium and Andre Coetzee signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with SITA to undertake a proof of concept (POC) project. The POC was successful and eventually culminated in SITA issuing a tender, RFB 428.[citation needed] Xantium offered to buy Impi for R12 million[citation needed], which was ultimately rejected. However Gary Fortuin (who serves as the current managing director) moved from Xantium to Impi Linux.
Following the POC at SITA, Impi Linux officially became a company, Impilinux (PTY) Ltd, in February 2005. This was at SITA's request. SITA were unable to procure from a project, so a company had to be formed. Nick Venter and Howard Lowenthal assisted Andre Coetzee and Gary Fortuin to structure the new company.
In February 2005, the fledgling company setup shop in Rosebank, Johannesburg, at which point Ross Addis joined Impi Linux full time(although on the Cubit Accounting payroll).
In May 2005 Impi Linux exhibited at the first South African LinuxWorld in Johannesburg with a sponsorship from Arivia.kom, a South African IT para-statal company.
In August 2005, due to the core of the ImpiLinux team (consisting of Gary Fortuin, Francis Viviers and Ross Addis) then started discussions with Mark Shuttleworth. In September the deal was concluded when Mark Shuttleworth, through his HBD venture capital company, invested R10 million into Impi Linux in return for 65% of the company. Two Canonical employees in South Africa, Adi Attar and Charles Majola, also joined Impi Linux.
In August 2005, SITA issued the Request For Bid RFB 428, which is one of the largest Linux desktop tenders internationally.[citation needed]
Impi Linux, along with eight other companies, won the tender in February 2006.
In May 2006 Impi Linux launched a partnership programme entitled “The Mile High Club”to correlate with the company’s aviation marketing theme. It is intended to give partners better access to Impi Linux's professional services and products as well as benefiting from Impi Linux's relationships with CodeWeavers and Canonical
In August 2006 Impi Linux begun a proof of concept come roll-out at the South African Department of Science and Technology, utilizing a customized version of Impi Linux . The entire 14-person National Advisory Council on Innovation (Naci) are said to be using Impi Linux desktops from the end of September.
They are currently engaged with many private enterprises and government departments in Southern Africa.
[edit] Company Shareholding
Current shareholders of the company are, Shuttleworth's HBD Business Holdings(65%), with an additional shareholding from Khuselo Investments (Pty)Ltd (10%). Khuselo Investments jointly represented by Pumla Radebe, Johannesburg City Parks Chairperson and Eddie Funde, current chairman of the SABC. In addition, 20% of the shares in the new entity have been earmarked for BEE, in the form of a trust that will disburse shares to previously disadvantaged employees over time. Other minor shareholders (5%) include, Andre Coetzee, Nick Venter, Howard Lowenthal and Gary Fortuin.
[edit] Release History
[edit] Impi Linux 1
Version 1 (released 1 November 2003) Andre Coetzee decided to base it on Gnoppix, the installation script used dialog and was written in PHP by Francis Viviers who was employed full time by Andre Coetzee to work on Impi Linux.
The initial distro utilized the GNOME desktop environment and contained new utilities mainly written by Quintin Beukes (a shareholder in Cubit Accounting) who was also employed by Andre Coetzee at the time. The utilities produced included code that auto-mounted and unmounted USB Devices.[citation needed]
[edit] Impi Linux 2
In 2004 Impi Linux started the very ambitious task of building a Linux distribution from scratch. Ultimately, it didn't prove to be a good decision on their part, but it did earn the Impi team valuable experience in the entire Linux software stack. Impi Linux 2 was officially released at an event, held at the Dimension Data Campus in Johannesburg , celebrating the first international Software Freedom Day on 28 August 2004. The event was sponsored by SITA (South African State Information Technology Agency), Novell, HP and Sun. It featured a keynote address by the minister of the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA), Geraldine Fraser Moleketi.
Impi Linux 2 featured a KDE interface and a very fast installation procedure (again written in PHP). The administration panel was placed inside the Cubit Accounting system, which shipped with the distribution.
[edit] Impi Linux 2005
In March 2005, ImpiLinux 2005 was released. It was basically version 2 with major stability and cosmetic changes. ImpiLinux 2005 had a unique African theme, which was created by Jonathan Smit, a graphic designer then employed by ImpiLinux.
ImpiLinux released two updates to the 2005 version, UP1 and UP2, between March 2005 and August 2005.
[edit] Duty Free 6.01
Impi Linux released their last free public release in January 2006, Impi Linux Duty Free 6.01 and was based on Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy Badger. It featured a KDE interface on a Live CD. It also featured the first GUI Live CD installer on an Ubuntu system. The installer was a culmination of the previous Impi Linux installation methods, which has now been dropped in favour of the Ubuntu Live CD installer.
[edit] Customised Releases
In June 2005, ImpiLinux delivered a customized version of the distribution to Exclusive Books, a large South African book retailer for use on the point of sale terminals. Exclusive Books continue to use the distribution in all of their stores across South Africa and in Nigeria.
[edit] Beyond
Impi Linux has subsequently created many enterprise type extensions to Ubuntu, mainly revolving around single sign-on networks and Windows software compatibility, as well as drivers for broadband devices.
[edit] External links
- ImpiLinux
- News of Mark Shuttleworth's investment
- New of the Department of Science and Technology POC
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