I was relatively concerned when I noticed the user profile status when referencing @oSoMoN’s Zenity part article:
I guess if a user used their @canonical.com mail address for the account and did not bother to switch to a new address after leaving canonical, the account will end up being suspended along with the company mail address…
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Yes. Canonical IS appear to have a playbook to run when people leave the company.
It does exactly what you’ve observed if the (ex-)employee used their Canonical (or Ubuntu) email address in their profile here or on the Ubuntu discourse.
I knew this was coming when I left, and changed my primary email address to my personal account.
I think this is poorly thought through (or, if I’m kinder, just rapidly implemented, and not revisited), and causes some stress for the person leaving, as they are immediately seen as ‘persona-non-grata’ in the community.
This is especially galling if (like many early Canonicalers) you started in the community, joined the company and then left, expecting to continue in the community. I dislike this quite a bit.
(There will of course be some people who leave under a cloud, or are ushered out, who will have zero intention of continuing to contribute)
As an employee, you have access to secrets. If your account is not deleted, then you may still have access to those secrets, if IS don’t do a full clean of your accounts. That’s understandable. Also, IS are busy, and pressing a magic API button that nukes (by suspending for a long time) an account is easier and not time consuming.
It’s partly a by-product of this being yet-another-system for IS to nuke people from. In the past, I suspect “all” (or the majority) of what they had to do was “Remove the person from the (hidden) ~canonical group on launchpad”. These days there’s a ton more systems to keep safe and secure. 
It would be a bit more “Human” though, if during off-boarding, there was some kind of option to remove people from groups, rather than eject their account into the fires of Mordor.
Workarounds and fixes (assuming you do want to keep your account and/or contribute) include:
- Changing your primary email address on the account before you leave.
- Contact the Canonical IS department to get them to ninja your account after the fact.
Ideally though, the fix (in my personal opinion), is to ping the user when they resign (or are asked to leave) and inform them this will happen. That way it’s an informed choice.
I don’t believe anyone is told this happens. It just happens.
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