UPDATE: Announcement from www.kubuntu.de
Today the kubuntu.de - Team posted an update of their announcement on www.kubuntu.de. Discussion as usual at Ubuntu and Kubuntu mailing list.
Kubuntu.de protest week – Update
The linux community received our protest with both, agreement, but also criticism.
We would like to react to those by giving more specific reasons for our protest.
The aim
This website, including the forum, the mailing lists and the respective IRC channels (#kubuntu-de and #kubuntu-de-team) has one aim: to support the community, to offer a platform to the users of Kubuntu and, last but not least, to boost the Kubuntu-project so as to make it an outstanding distribution.
We all from the kubuntu.de - team have poursuited this aim together, but most of the work has been done by Andreas Mueller (amu). He is not only co-founder and unpaid developer of the Kubuntu-project, but he's also hosting this website with current Kubuntu-LiveCDs and he's taking over all the arising expenses himself. Gnoppix, another “baby” of Andreas Mueller, now in possession of Canonical, but still being financed by Andreas.
What we criticise
During our endeavours for Kubuntu, several requests to Canonical were made. All the mails were addressed to Mrs. Jane Silber, CCO of Canonical.
Our concern primarily regards the following subjects, which need - due to the present state of the project - several basic decisions and responses by Canonical :
Developers
Kubuntu needs more paid developers. Even though Canonical says that there is one paid developer for GNOME and one KDE (seb128/jriddell), the rest of the paid developers rather tend to support GNOME. It would be reasonable to pay at least 2-3 more developers to balance, because only providing KDE-packages is not enough.
Status of the project
What is the meaning behind Mark Shuttleworth's commitment, that he wants to make “Kubuntu a 1st class distribution”? Is he stepping back from his former declaration that Kubuntu is a pure community project (http://www.kubuntu.org/announcements/hoary-release.php), and is it planned to integrate Kubuntu permanently into the Canonical support system?
Restricted independence of the project
Kubuntu should be a little more independent as a project. Of course we understand that money has to be made at some point – you can not only spend the money, you need to get it back somehow.
But the decision should be a technical one in the first place, which is geared to special markets (concretely: the SMIME support which is important e.g. in Germany).
Sponsoring
What about having another big sponsor on board? Generally, this could happen.
Is Kubuntu a community project or are there financial interests behind though?
ISO-Updates
Is there any problem to integrate patches and security updates into the install- and live-iso's and to provide updates of the iso's after 3 months? Bugs do happen.
Community contribution (portal software)
Except Jonathan Riddell and Andreas Mueller nobody can change the website of kubuntu (kubuntu.org – Andreas has gained his account back now, after more than two months).
If someone can't make packages, that doesn't mean he can't do anything for the project. A lot of volunteers wanted to contribute, but they couldn't because they have no access.
A portal software solve this problem. This software could ideally provide a direct translation (possibly with connection to Rosetta) and at the same time allow the export to the official documentation. We are already working on the realisation of such a portal.
Trademarks
On the site of ubuntuusers.de it is stated that they are the “official german portal of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu and all other Ubuntu derivatives”. None of the concerned party is even known with a nickname on #kubuntu-devel or #kubuntu-de.
There is a contract between Matthias Urlichs, Julius Bloch, Marcus Fischer and Canonical http://static.ubuntu-de.org/cms/files/00/05/52/agreement.pdf) in order to give them the possibility to use the name “Ubuntu” for the association “ubuntu Deutschland e.V.” over which the three preside. The association itself is hosting the portal ubuntuusers.de.
But this contract doesn't entitle “ubuntu Deutschland e.V.” to the names Kubuntu, Xubuntu and to all the other names of ubuntu derivatives.
Therefore we request rectification on the sites of the association as well as on the site of ubuntuusers.de: that they have nothing to do with Kubuntu and other derivatives of Canonical Trademarks and Ubuntu Foundation distributions, since they are only supporting ubuntuusers.de and no other community projects around Ubuntu and its derivatives.
Moreover, there exist some so-called “domaingrabber” in Germany which only want to make profit with the brand Kubuntu. Why are they not admonished and closed?
This is a sensitive area, but instead of declaring Canonical is hiding away from the problems.
Our protest will continue as long as these questions are not clarified.
Kubuntu.de protest week – Update
The linux community received our protest with both, agreement, but also criticism.
We would like to react to those by giving more specific reasons for our protest.
The aim
This website, including the forum, the mailing lists and the respective IRC channels (#kubuntu-de and #kubuntu-de-team) has one aim: to support the community, to offer a platform to the users of Kubuntu and, last but not least, to boost the Kubuntu-project so as to make it an outstanding distribution.
We all from the kubuntu.de - team have poursuited this aim together, but most of the work has been done by Andreas Mueller (amu). He is not only co-founder and unpaid developer of the Kubuntu-project, but he's also hosting this website with current Kubuntu-LiveCDs and he's taking over all the arising expenses himself. Gnoppix, another “baby” of Andreas Mueller, now in possession of Canonical, but still being financed by Andreas.
What we criticise
During our endeavours for Kubuntu, several requests to Canonical were made. All the mails were addressed to Mrs. Jane Silber, CCO of Canonical.
Our concern primarily regards the following subjects, which need - due to the present state of the project - several basic decisions and responses by Canonical :
Developers
Kubuntu needs more paid developers. Even though Canonical says that there is one paid developer for GNOME and one KDE (seb128/jriddell), the rest of the paid developers rather tend to support GNOME. It would be reasonable to pay at least 2-3 more developers to balance, because only providing KDE-packages is not enough.
Status of the project
What is the meaning behind Mark Shuttleworth's commitment, that he wants to make “Kubuntu a 1st class distribution”? Is he stepping back from his former declaration that Kubuntu is a pure community project (http://www.kubuntu.org/announcements/hoary-release.php), and is it planned to integrate Kubuntu permanently into the Canonical support system?
Restricted independence of the project
Kubuntu should be a little more independent as a project. Of course we understand that money has to be made at some point – you can not only spend the money, you need to get it back somehow.
But the decision should be a technical one in the first place, which is geared to special markets (concretely: the SMIME support which is important e.g. in Germany).
Sponsoring
What about having another big sponsor on board? Generally, this could happen.
Is Kubuntu a community project or are there financial interests behind though?
ISO-Updates
Is there any problem to integrate patches and security updates into the install- and live-iso's and to provide updates of the iso's after 3 months? Bugs do happen.
Community contribution (portal software)
Except Jonathan Riddell and Andreas Mueller nobody can change the website of kubuntu (kubuntu.org – Andreas has gained his account back now, after more than two months).
If someone can't make packages, that doesn't mean he can't do anything for the project. A lot of volunteers wanted to contribute, but they couldn't because they have no access.
A portal software solve this problem. This software could ideally provide a direct translation (possibly with connection to Rosetta) and at the same time allow the export to the official documentation. We are already working on the realisation of such a portal.
Trademarks
On the site of ubuntuusers.de it is stated that they are the “official german portal of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu and all other Ubuntu derivatives”. None of the concerned party is even known with a nickname on #kubuntu-devel or #kubuntu-de.
There is a contract between Matthias Urlichs, Julius Bloch, Marcus Fischer and Canonical http://static.ubuntu-de.org/cms/files/00/05/52/agreement.pdf) in order to give them the possibility to use the name “Ubuntu” for the association “ubuntu Deutschland e.V.” over which the three preside. The association itself is hosting the portal ubuntuusers.de.
But this contract doesn't entitle “ubuntu Deutschland e.V.” to the names Kubuntu, Xubuntu and to all the other names of ubuntu derivatives.
Therefore we request rectification on the sites of the association as well as on the site of ubuntuusers.de: that they have nothing to do with Kubuntu and other derivatives of Canonical Trademarks and Ubuntu Foundation distributions, since they are only supporting ubuntuusers.de and no other community projects around Ubuntu and its derivatives.
Moreover, there exist some so-called “domaingrabber” in Germany which only want to make profit with the brand Kubuntu. Why are they not admonished and closed?
This is a sensitive area, but instead of declaring Canonical is hiding away from the problems.
Our protest will continue as long as these questions are not clarified.
posted by Mimi at
4/11/2006 02:17:00 PM
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