On Thu, Jul 27, 2006 at 03:25:10PM +1200, Volker Kuhlmann wrote: > > >>Ubuntu being pro-active on Freedom (resourced distribution) probably > > >>answers this best though. > > Oh sorry, I thought freedom was all about *my* choice. :)
No, that's "Freedom", not "freedom" :-) > The way you said it, "pro-active on freedom" is good only if I choose > gnome, That used to be true when Gnome was first released, because the licensing on KDE was non-Free. But that was fixed years ago. > Btw I don't see Ubuntu being more pro-active on freedom than anyone > else. I do see that they must have a stellar deficit, but that's a > different topic (although no doubt has a huge effect on its popularity). pre-active? They're more passive; if it's non-Free they won't require it, or directly support it -- hence you get no MP3 playback by default, for example. They don't say "you cannot install MP3", they say "we won't do it; but you have the freedom to do so if you want to; just don't ask us about it" ... and therefore it's Ubuntu *users* who support the mechanisms for installing support ... > > Kubuntu's there should you want it. > Now that's a different distro IMHO. No, Kbuntu is not truly a separate distribution; it is actually only a meta-package on Ubuntu that can replace the Gnome desktop meta-package, or co-exist with it. At this stage in Ubuntu's life, "everything" works seamlessly on Ubuntu (defining "everything" as "everything that Ubuntu wish to support"), and "most things" work seamlessly in Kubuntu. The fact that you can download an ISO with only the KDE meta-packages on it and none of the gnome ones is a strange red herring in the definition of "distribution", I*M*HO :-) > But this is another thread heading for the killfile... :) Will that kill only the current messages in the thread, or the replies as well? :-) -jim (Of course I expect that Volker already understands most of the above explanation, but not everyone watching this thread would) (I wonder if Mephis would like to become Mubuntu? Actually, I don't like all this mangling of the word Ubuntu, although I've been informed that Kubuntu is a valid word in Xhosa, I don't think Edubuntu is! The installation on my iMac is called iBuntu, and I was thinking of calling the one in VMware on my work windows laptop vbuntu ...)
