Ubuntu One is an

OpenID OpenID is an open standard and decentralized authentication protocol promoted by the non-profit OpenID Foundation. It allows users to be authenticated by co-operating sites (known as relying parties, or RP) using a third-party identity provid ...

-based single sign-on service operated by Canonical Ltd. to allow users to log onto many Canonical-owned Web sites. Until April 2014, Ubuntu One was also a

file hosting service A file-hosting service, cloud-storage service, online file-storage provider, or cyberlocker is an internet hosting service specifically designed to host user files. It allows users to upload files that could be accessed over the internet afte ...

and music store that allowed users to store data " in the cloud". The service enabled users to store files online and sync them between computers and mobile devices, as well as stream audio and music from cloud to mobile devices. In April 2014, Canonical announced that the cloud storage and synchronization features would be shut down at the end of July 31 of 2014, leaving the sign-on features intact.

Features

Ubuntu One had a client application that ran on Ubuntu 9.04 and later,

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or newer, and

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10.6 and higher. Other Linux distributions not running GNOME were supported through a console client. The source code is available through launchpad and can easily be compiled for other Unix-like operating systems, such as

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...

. There was an Ubuntu One music app for iOS devices. A free Ubuntu One account offered 5 GB of storage. The Ubuntu One service was similar to Microsoft OneDrive,

iCloud iCloud is a Personal cloud, cloud service from Apple Inc. launched on October 12, 2011 as a successor to MobileMe. , the service had an estimated 850 million users, up from 782 million users in 2016. iCloud enables users to sync their data to t ...

Dropbox Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, U.S. that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software. Dropbox was founded in 2 ...

Google Play Music Google Play Music is a discontinued music and podcast streaming service and an online music locker operated by Google as part of its Google Play line of services. The service was announced on May 10, 2011; after a six-month, invitation-only be ...

, Amazon Cloud Player. Its client code was written in Python. It used

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for its low-level networking and Protocol Buffers for protocol description. Data was synced over a custom protocol called "storage", and stored on Amazon S3. Ubuntu One offered automatic upload of photos taken from Android mobile devices for immediate synchronization across computers; integration with

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for contacts and with

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for notes due to the access to the local CouchDB instance. It also had capabilities for purchasing DRM-free music while synchronizing them automatically with an Ubuntu One Account via the Ubuntu One Music Store (in partnership with

7digital 7digital Group Plc is a British publicly listed company that offers access to music, tracking and reporting for clients. London-based, 7digital provides end-to-end music services for the fitness, social media, DSPs, and gaming industries with b ...

). Ubuntu One published

APIs Apis or APIS may refer to: * Apis (deity), an ancient Egyptian god * Apis (Greek mythology), several different figures in Greek mythology * Apis (city), an ancient seaport town on the northern coast of Africa **Kom el-Hisn, a different Egyptian ci ...

for developers wishing to build applications with file and data synchronization or music streaming. An Ubuntu One account gave users access to the Canonical Store, Launchpad, Ubuntu One and other Ubuntu services; an Ubuntu One account allowed users to store files within the cloud, store their contacts details within the interface, access the Ubuntu One Music Store to buy music from and activate the Ubuntu Software Center. Other sites that support

authorization also had support for Ubuntu One.

History

In June 2013, the

Ubuntu Single Sign On Ubuntu Single Sign On (also known as Ubuntu SSO, Launchpad Login Service) is an OpenID-based single sign-on service provided by Canonical to allow users to log into many websites. On June 21, 2013, Canonical announced that Ubuntu Single Sig ...

account was re-branded under Ubuntu One as part of consolidating Canonical's online services under the Ubuntu One brand. Also, the announcement identified

Ubuntu Pay Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All the ...

as another service to come under the brand. Following a security breach in July 2013, Canonical put the Ubuntu Forums under the brand, meaning that Forum users now log in using Ubuntu One, rather than with the previous username-password system. On April 2, 2014, Canonical announced shutting down of select Ubuntu One services. As of the day of announcement, it was no longer possible to purchase storage space or music. File services would be unavailable from June 1, but existing users were allowed to download their content until July 31, when all stored data would be permanently deleted. Canonical explained that they were not willing to make more investment in Ubuntu One, which would be required to compete with other services. Instead, their priority is making a "converged operating system for phones, tablets, desktops." The company also announced plans to release the source code for the Ubuntu One server software to the public under an open-source license. The shutdown of cloud storage and synchronization services does not affect the single sign-on function of Ubuntu One, which will remain in place. On July 31, 2014 the service was shut down and all of the users' files were deleted. In August 2015 Canonical released the file syncing code under the

GNU AGPL The GNU Affero General Public License (GNU AGPL) is a free, copyleft license published by the Free Software Foundation in November 2007, and based on the GNU General Public License, version 3 and the Affero General Public License. The Free So ...

. Some other server parts remain to be released, with no

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Reception

Ubuntu One has been criticized within the Ubuntu community for using proprietary server software. There was no native client integration for the Kubuntu variant of the Ubuntu operating system, as of January 2013. Kubuntu integration was under development and had also received a grant from the Google Summer of Code 2010. Further criticism concerned the unclear revenue share that would be granted to the community. The

Amarok Amarok may refer to: Music * Amarok (band), a Spanish progressive rock band * ''Amarok'' (Mike Oldfield album), 1990 * ''Amarok'' (Nargaroth album), 2000 * ''Amarok'', 2010 album by Francisco López (musician) Other uses * Amarok (wolf), in In ...

development team announced that they would not add support for the Ubuntu One Music Store to the Amarok media player for the moment, unlike the Magnatune media store, which returns 10% of the revenue produced via the interface to Amarok.

Storage

Storage was out-sourced to Amazon S3. Files stored in the Ubuntu One file stores were not encrypted.

References

External links