Let's see. This "Software Freedom Conservancy" waves its metaphorical hands about CDDLv1 and GPLv2, and argues that Ubuntu users should be required to compile ZFS themselves. That doesn't seem very freedom-friendly to me. It sounds more like "told you so" abuse.
Nothing against Ubuntu here I just thought it would make good fodder for discussion actually mostly over my head
I'm guessing you aren't anti-Ubuntu. It looks interesting, but way over my head too. Personally, I won't generally discuss Ubuntu on Wilders anymore as it just brings out the trolls and my doctors say I have to keep my blood pressure down lol. I've been running Ubuntu regularly for over 18 months now, although I first experimented with it around eight years ago. I hope Canonical sort all the legal stuff out as I think that they are becoming a relatively decent real alternative to MS and Apple. Shuttleworth has had to make controversial fiscal decisions in the past that many see as dubious, although I think they were inevitable for Ubuntu to become a viable alternative in the real world. Anyone voicing the opinion that Canonical are heading in the right direction is normally labelled as an Ubuntu 'fanboy', which is fundamentally nonsensical to me. I bought a Lenovo laptop preinstalled with Trusty Tahr so as to have a reliable hardware/Linux compatible platform. If distro distributors don't work with OEM's or progress in a similar direction they are never going to be anything more than 'hobbyist', which is fine in itself, but impractical for most users.
Yeah after reading some of the things that came out about Mint - more so than the hack itself - I believe the hobbyist distro's may not have enough support to do things securely and properly.
I think Mint looks beautiful, but just taking Ubuntu and putting a prettier face on it isn't good enough if the support isn't there IMO. Canonical have voiced concerns about Mint's security strategy before but it was often dismissed as some form of sour grapes. I've got nothing against individual distros copying Canonical's work and repackaging it, that's the nature of a lot of FOSS anyway. But I think that end users should be aware that the support and security is unlikely to be there. That support and security costs money, time and effort. Hence Shuttleworth's financial decisions. I don't know if caveat emptor literally applies to freeware but the end user should definitely always be 'aware'.
The prettier face sure makes navigation easier though.I tried ubuntu 14 desktop for all of a few hours.As a windows user to ,I just couldn't get used to the layout of the taskbar at the top and icons on the side.There didn't seem as many customization's for the desktop such as enlarging the panel etc as mint.(at least i couldn't find them anyway) tried to install the cinnamon theme in the hope it would be easier but even that ended up a chore.Any reasons why ubuntujust dont put the iso already installed with Cinnamon ,on its website rather than having to download and install it?
I found the transition fairly easy, there again, I'm a great fan of Unity. It's an improvement on Gnome in my opinion. I think future versions of Unity will have a moveable launcher. There are other launchers available in the repo anyway (you can configure Unity to show/hide). I found none of them as simple and practical as Unity though. Personally I prefer the systems tray in the top right, probably as I like Mac's. It's all down to personal preference I suppose.
