The review was extremely poor if you ask me.
They didn't understand the goal of the distribution. If anybody is still
wondering what that goal is I'll tell you. The goal is freedom.
Despite stating it they seem to be under the impression that there was some
other goal. Then Chris (if I recall) goes on to talk about Arch being a
better base. Where he got the impression that the majority of users were
technical is beyond me. The majority of the users here are far from
technical. I'm actually shocked at the lack of technical ability of the
majority here considering the difficulty of the distribution due to issues
beyond our community's control.
The comments on the forum are also unwarranted. They didn't understand the
posts because they aren't regulars on the forum. I'm pretty confident I know
exactly what they were referring. The posts they read were responses to
people whom had repeatedly asked questions about non-free software. Once a
person is told that this isn't the place you'd think they'd get the hint and
move on. There are distributions targeted at and for people of other
political persuasions (hint: it's the majority of distributions).
Trolls aren't welcome on any forum and it is of no surprise the frank
responses seemed unhelpful.
The regulars here frequently point out in a polite and helpful way to those
who aren't trolling the issues with non-free software and why they won't
receive help here. To even say that though is misleading because we do help.
Numerous people including myself have pointed out solutions to non-free
driver/firmware issues. It may not be a desirable solution although it isn't
a problem the people here created. If you are wondering what the solution is
the answer to that is buy freedom friendly hardware. Trisquel really does a
good job making GNU/Linux easier for non-technical users. Trisquel is LINKING
to a company (if it isn't apparent I'm the CEO) that explicitly supports
Trisquel 100% of the time.
For a non-technical user it doesn't get any easier than buying a GNU/Linux
friendly USB wireless adapter (and/or other hardware).
Ubuntu also has trademark restrictions. I forget what they are exactly
although there are certain things you can't do or say if you swap out major
components. They explicitly state if you makes changes such as changing the
kernel you can't refer to Ubuntu. That may or may not be why it is "ignored".
Ubuntu and other non-free distributions are also likely not mentioned
elsewhere because the policy on this is one of rejecting / not supporting /
not promoting non-free software. Ubuntu includes non-free software.
I did notice they made a comment about a hardware company that supports
freedom- and then didn't name it. I'm sure it had something to do with the
system76 sponsorship. We also kind of ignored them when they contacted us
about sponsoring the Linux Action Show a while back.
