Blender has partnered with Canonical to provide enterprise-grade support to Blender users.

Blender is an open source 3D animation tool that has been used in the film, TV, tech and science community for years. As an open source platform, however, Blender hasn’t always had the support options its commercial competitors can boast.

That has changed, with Canonical providing enterprise-grade support. Canonical is the company behind Ubuntu, one of the most popular Linux distributions. The company also provides support for other open source applications.

“It’s a privilege to support Blender and the fantastic work of this remarkable community, its founders and leaders. Today’s announcement strengthens Blender with full-service Canonical support and long term security maintenance, and delivers the level of assurance that professional Blender content creators need, in partnership with the Blender Foundation” said Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical.

“The way Canonical structured this service with us is exemplary for the open-source movement,” said Blender Foundation’s Chairman Ton Roosendaal. “I believe it will set a new standard for how independent, free groups of makers who truly care for their product and users participate in the market and shape the future of the industry.”