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Blue Systems is a German IT company. It is most prominent as a major KDE supporter and previous driving force behind Kubuntu with a number of KDE developers working for Blue Systems. According to Blue Systems employee Aurélien Gâteau, "Blue Systems does not have a business model, at least for now".[4]
| Company type | GmbH |
|---|---|
| Industry | Free software |
| Founder | Clemens Tönnies, Jr. |
| Headquarters | , |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | |
| Owner | Clemens Tönnies, Jr. |
| Website | blue-systems |
Blue Systems was founded by German businessman Clemens Tönnies Jr. He is a son of the deceased Bernd Tönnies who founded meat production heavyweight Tönnies Lebensmittel in 1971.[5][6] Clemens Tönnies Jr. inherited 25% but left the company by transferring his shares to his brother Robert, who now owns 50% of Tönnies Lebensmittel.[7] The other 50% are owned by Bernd's brother Clemens Tönnies Sr. who is also the chairman of FC Schalke 04's board of directors. Tönnies Lebensmittel generated 4.3 billion Euro revenue in 2011.[8]
German IT website Golem.de did a feature about Tönnies Jr. in July 2012. According to the feature, Tönnies Jr. studied computer science, was 36 years old at the time of publication, and was described as a philanthropist.[4]
Blue Systems became first known as creator of Ubuntu/Kubuntu-based Linux distribution Netrunner whose first release was in March 2010.[9]
In February 2012, Clement Lefebvre of Ubuntu/Kubuntu-based Linux Mint announced that Blue Systems would become a sponsor to help Mint's KDE edition.[10][11]
After Canonical Ltd. stepped down as the main sponsor of Kubuntu in February 2012,[12] Blue Systems stepped into that role in April 2012.[13]
In 2012, Blue Systems gained more attention by hiring at least nine KDE developers.[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] Among the hired KDE developers are former Canonical employees Jonathan Riddell and Aurélien Gâteau, who joined in April 2012,[22] as well as long-time KWin developer Martin Grässlin who announced in October 2012 to switch to Blue Systems to work full-time on KWin beginning January 2013.[23]
On 13 January 2016, openDesktop.org founder Frank Karlitschek announced that his company hive01 GmbH along with openDesktop.org and related web sites has been bought by Blue Systems.[3][24][25] Later that year, in September 2016, KDE e.V. announced that the former openDesktop.org site "kde-look.org" now operates under KDE's umbrella as KDE Store, operated by Blue Systems’ “sister company” Pling GmbH.[26][27]
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