A must read very important news

[GreyGeek]

A couple years ago Shuttlesworth made it very clear about his views on the now "orphaned" Ubuntu derivatives. He cut off most of his support. Were it not for BlueSystems Kubuntu would be dead by now. As Ubuntu's path focuses more tightly on Unity and Shuttlesworth's dream of Ubuntu becoming profitable (not just Canonical's server and support business), it will be increasingly more difficult for Kububtu's now masceated dev team to pound Ubuntu into Kubuntu's KDE mold.

The question is not IF it will become too much work, but WHEN, forced by increasing difficulties, Kubuntu will choose another base for its own survival. The longer the delay in taking that course the more the user base will diminish as users doubts increase.

And that assumes that Shuttlesworth won't decide, for his own financial health, to further reducing or eliminating all support for Kubuntu, or even Ubuntu itself. Three years ago, when Shuttlesworth kicked the step kids out and established a 5 year LTS release I predicted that 2017 would be the deadline year he set for for Ubuntu to become profitable, fulfilling Shuttlesworth's hopes, or he would pull the plug on everything. I still hold to that view. I don't expect to see 17.04. If, to my surprise, it appears then I will remain with 14.04 till 2019. If, not I will rebase myself on either Debian KDE or Arch's version, as things now stand. With that in mind I continue to search for another Distro that gives KDE its due. IMO, this forum is more about KDE than the underlying Ubuntu framework, which is becoming increasingly hostile to KDE as it focuses on Unity. So, while I will remain connected to this forum I probably won't remain connected to Kubuntu if its trajectory continues along its current path. After all, it wasn't raining when Noah built the ark, and I am not going to wait for Kubuntu to collapse before I start looking around for a different boat.

[Qqmike]

GreyGeek: IMO, this forum is more about KDE than the underlying Ubuntu framework, which is becoming increasingly hostile to KDE as it focuses on Unity.

Yes, exactly, a good point. Anyway, that's my POV on this. I like KDE. You either do or you don't. I do. Remembering how I got seduced into Kubuntu/Linux in the first place, circa 2005, 6.04?, "everyone" said that Kubuntu w/KDE would "feel very much like your Windows XP, you'd like Kubuntu." That's how I got hooked here. Have tried (EDIT) non-KDE distros and don't like them. Kubuntu could be based on Debian for all I care, as long as all I see is the usable KDE on top; but I am not an arch/slackware-type guy who cares to build my own OS.

[claydoh]

It's true but backports aren't officially supported as a path of upgrade in Ubuntu while they've been in Debian for a while (even though this has not always been true).

Nope, this is not the standard Ubuntu/Debian Backports I am talking about, it is the kubuntu-backports ppa, and is an official Kubuntu one. And is where the current kde packages in 14.04 actually came from. It is possible that the current kubuntu-backports Trusty (klde4) packages may make it into the official 14.04 repos, just as previous versions have.

[claydoh]

A couple years ago Shuttlesworth made it very clear about his views on the now "orphaned" Ubuntu derivatives. He cut off most of his support. Were it not for BlueSystems Kubuntu would be dead by now.

So how does this explain the continued existence of Edubuntu, the recently added Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, Lubuntu, and Mythbuntu?
None of these has ever had a paid-for-by-canonical developer. Afaik, most if not all of them lack a paid-for-by-someone-else developer. They are still around.

I am often a fan of the conspiracy theory here and there, but there has to be a kernel of something there, first.
What has happened to Jonathan is based on the (purported) "facts" as given, not some thing to kill off Kubuntu.

[MoonRise]

So how does this explain the continued existence of Edubuntu, the recently added Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, Lubuntu, and Mythbuntu?
None of these has ever had a paid-for-by-canonical developer. Afaik, most if not all of them lack a paid-for-by-someone-else developer. They are still around.

I am often a fan of the conspiracy theory here and there, but there has to be a kernel of something there, first.
What has happened to Jonathan is based on the (purported) "facts" as given, not some thing to kill off Kubuntu.

+1

[mparillo]

If you lurk on IRC #kubuntu-devel you will see that Kubuntu is not dead yet. I was pleased to see santa_, sgclark, and yofel working on Kubuntu automation. Sure new folks will hit some bumps and new KDE S/W may hit the development releases a bit slower, and backports may be delayed, but I believe that the project has energy and the team will get some help from all those who have left.

[claydoh]

If you lurk on IRC #kubuntu-devel you will see that Kubuntu is not dead yet. I was pleased to see santa_, sgclark, and yofel working on Kubuntu automation. Sure new folks will hit some bumps and new KDE S/W may hit the development releases a bit slower, and backports may be delayed, but I believe that the project has energy and the team will get some help from all those who have left.

Exactly.
I hang out there, it becomes easy to overlook that.



Sent from my LG G4

[mparillo]

Here is the automation design I referenced earlier: https://gitlab.com/jmsantamaria-pape...ion_design.pdf

[GreyGeek]

So how does this explain the continued existence of Edubuntu, the recently added Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, Lubuntu, and Mythbuntu?
None of these has ever had a paid-for-by-canonical developer. Afaik, most if not all of them lack a paid-for-by-someone-else developer. They are still around.

I am often a fan of the conspiracy theory here and there, but there has to be a kernel of something there, first.
What has happened to Jonathan is based on the (purported) "facts" as given, not some thing to kill off Kubuntu.

Kernel of truth? By using the word purported and putting the word facts in quotes are you implying that what Jonathan challanged Shuttlesworth and his council about was made up by him or a figment of his imagination? It has been made abundantly clear that membership on the Kubuntu council depends entirely on the blessing of Shuttlesworth, via his council, so I understand why you wrote what you did.

As as far as the distros you mentioned as proof that unsupported or undermanned distros can exist, It has been my experience that distros built by one or two developers usually fail to sustain ther quality or breadth of applications after the first couple of releases as fatigue sets in and the hoped for additional developers and donations fail to materialize. Without financial help to purchase additional hosts download frustrations drive potential users away. When a developer isn't paid he/she has to have a full time job to support themselves, spouse and kids. That means working on the distro in the evenings and weekends, spouse willing. One can burn the candle on both ends only for so long.

Sometimes a distro's success depends entirely on the presence of a single indivdual. PCLinux was #1 on Distrowatch for a year. Then a hurricane destroyed TexStar's home and he took a year's sabattical from PCLinux. The loss of quality became evident in the next release and got only worse in the next. Infighting, casting blame and dominance fights took over as things continued to decline. When medical bills forced Mepis developer Woodford (IIRC) to leave Mepis its quality went into the toilet. Like PCLinux, quality was restored only when the prime or original developer returned. LebraNet, my first Debian based distro, died when its creator died of cancer.

Several distros on DistroWatch haven't released in two years and the website of a couple no longer exist or redirect to another distro. Some have recent. upgrades of apps within their distro but two years has passed since the release (rolling?) of the distro itself. KANNOTIX is an example. I ran KANNOTIX and then KANOPPIX for a while several years ago and left for greener pastures when it was obvious that it takes more than one or two people to sustain a distro over the long haul.

As I said before, as pounding KDE into the Ubuntu mold becomes increasingly more difficult rebasing on Debian is the only viable and sensible solution. IMO. From other distros featuring Plasma 5 that I've tried it is obvious, IMO, that Kubuntu's plasma 5 is lagging behind in speed and stability. If that continues it will be a game changer for me. That and Btrfs.

[claydoh]

Boy, you sure read a lot into that.

What Riddell was booted for is still based at least in part on a he-said-she-said situation, so the facts are still purported. They didn't like his badgering them. They kicked him out for that, not in order to kill off Kubuntu.

Kubuntu is much less a one person outfit than pclinuxos

Let's see what 6 months brings


Sent from my LG G4

[MoonRise]

Boy, you sure read a lot into that.

What Riddell was booted for is still based at least in part on a he-said-she-said situation, so the facts are still purported. They didn't like his badgering them. They kicked him out for that, not in order to kill off Kubuntu.

Kubuntu is much less a one person outfit than pclinuxos

Let's see what 6 months brings


Sent from my LG G4

+1

[mparillo]

Maybe I should just let that go, but there are two sets of facts, and I believe only one is in dispute.

On the first set of facts, the two substantive issues JR raised, I believe a fair-minded person could only conclude he was essentially correct. The first substantive issue was the use of the "better support for flavors" donation. Initially, there was absolutely zero accounting. The larger Community Council eventually addressed this, and did a look-back going to the time "better support for flavors" was changed to "community support". Currently, the transparency is excellent, the process for applying for funds reasonable, the funds are being used well, and the Kubuntu Members have been well-represented in the expenditures. The second substantive issue was licensing restrictions. Again, some time during a two-year effort with the SFLC, Canonical added a trump clause, effectively bringing their policies into GPL compliance. So, Canonical is now compliant with the letter of the GPL, but is hardly the poster child for Free Software. (https://www.fsf.org/news/canonical-u...icensing-terms)

The second set of facts, the badgering by JR and the bullying by Canonical and the Council, is a bit tougher to judge. IMHO, he grew frustrated with inaction on the substantive issues and his criticism became increasingly pointed. I personally think the right course for the larger Community Council would have been to admit that JR was correct, and to immediately announce that they would do better on the first issue going forward (which they eventually did, and by improving their transparency, they effectively admitted that their initial record-keeping was sub-par), and to admit that they were powerless to address the second. But nobody likes to admit a mistake and nobody wants to be called out as a functionary. So the solution was to tell him to stop, and when he did not, to eject him.

Of course none of this has any bearing on whether Kubuntu is the best distro for my use cases. It was, and remains so.

[pauly]

I stopped using Kubuntu a long time ago but really because KDE is too buggy to me. I found Gnome to be much better for me. I still feel for you guys but I think the main thing being missed is that Ubuntu derivatives are easier to use and have a much greater range of software to use. The ppa system and the ease of installing software. Just my opinion but KDE is best with Ubuntu. So is any derivative in my opinion. Go to Fedora or any other distro and you lose a lot of software choice. I hope they keep Kubuntu going. If not the next best hope is a coalescing of the community around a single alternative allowing for the resources to build the same kind of support that you had with Ubuntu but alas fragmentation is the name of the game in the linux world.

[kubicle]

What Riddell was booted for is still based at least in part on a he-said-she-said situation.

That's not really accurate, "he-said-she-said situation" means that it is (nearly) impossible for both parties to prove their claims. In this case, if what the UCC claimed had any basis on reality, it would have been easy to prove (which they failed to do).

They didn't like his badgering them. They kicked him out for that, not in order to kill off Kubuntu.

You can keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better...but I'm not buying it. They probably didn't intend to kill off Kubuntu (just to put the kubuntu community in it's place...as obedient free labor to Canonical), but they effectively did...and downplaying the incident isn't going to revive a dead duck.

I seriously wish people would take their resources and time somewhere where they are appreciated instead of what *ubuntu has become (but everyone is of course free to do as they please).

[kubicle]

I stopped using Kubuntu a long time ago but really because KDE is too buggy to me. I found Gnome to be much better for me. I still feel for you guys but I think the main thing being missed is that Ubuntu derivatives are easier to use and have a much greater range of software to use. The ppa system and the ease of installing software. Just my opinion but KDE is best with Ubuntu. So is any derivative in my opinion. Go to Fedora or any other distro and you lose a lot of software choice. I hope they keep Kubuntu going. If not the next best hope is a coalescing of the community around a single alternative allowing for the resources to build the same kind of support that you had with Ubuntu but alas fragmentation is the name of the game in the linux world.

Umm, basically all the major distros and even most of the smaller ones offer basically all the essential software (and not counting a few crapware Canonical software packages like unity, everything in the ubuntu repos comes from the debian repos). And opensuse's OBS and arch's AUR run circles around *buntus PPAs.

Kubuntu's KDE is very vanilla and pretty bleeding edge (which IMO is a good thing, that's how I like it), but it's never going to be the most polished/stable implementations of KDE (nor is it supposed to be).