If this is to be taken at face-value I'd view it as "poor show" on Canonical's part. An offer of employment was made and later rescinded. However, while a "prov

If this is to be taken at face-value I'd view it as "poor show" on Canonical's part. An offer of employment was made and later rescinded. However, while a "provisional" offer might seem unusual, from a UK-perspective it would normally be down to things like eligiblity-to-work, ID checks, and references (a "provisional offer based on satisfactory references" is quite normal). I'm not sure if the author would say, or know, the reason _why_ the offer was rescinded, but, on face-value, it presents Canonical's HR and recruitment process quite poorly. On the other hand, if Canonical requested and could not get references, or references were negative, the offer would quite understandably be withdrawn. From the article, all we know is that Canonical advertised a position, the author was provisionally offered the position, then Canonical withdrew the provisional offer.