Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth will resume his place as CEO of the company this July, taking over from current chief Jane Silber.
Silber has led the company since 2010, after a stint as COO. Her seven-year tenure has seen Ubuntu become the leading public cloud operating system by a considerable distance, alongside other achievements, but said it was time for a change.
"We're now entering a new phase of accelerated growth at Canonical, and it's time to pass the baton to both seasoned hands and a new generation of Canonical leaders," Silber said as part of a blog post announcing the news.
"Over the next three months I will remain CEO but begin to formally transfer knowledge and responsibility to others in the executive team. In July, Mark will retake the CEO role and I will move to the Canonical Board of Directors."
Shuttleworth will retake the helm at a slightly troubled time for the company; it has just shuttered its efforts to move Ubuntu to mobile and tablet devices, and Shuttleworth himself was recently spotted blasting some members of the open-source community as "muppets".
On the other hand, however, he is also coming back in at a time when open source software is the most popular it's ever been. Technologies like Big Data and the Internet of Things have pushed open source even further into the enterprise, raising awareness and creating demand for skilled open source professionals.
As for Silber, she said she will "take some time to recharge" before seeking another full-time role.
"I am proud of what we've accomplished together, honoured to have been a part of it, and I have learnt so much along the way," she wrote. "I am already nostalgic for the feeling of Ubuntu I have become accustomed to here, in both the Canonical and canonical sense of the word."
Picture credit: Wikimedia Commons
