Fwd: Re: [kubuntu-users] UPDATE: Announcement from www.kubuntu.de

[Jonathan Jesse]

To save Riddell time and making him to stop working on more important things.  
This was just posted to Kubuntu-Devel by amu and this was posted earlier to 
Kubuntu-Users.

----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: Re: [kubuntu-users] UPDATE: Announcement from www.kubuntu.de
Date: Tuesday 11 April 2006 10:23
From: Jonathan Riddell <jriddell at ubuntu.com>
To: Kubuntu Help and User Discussions <kubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>

On Tue, Apr 11, 2006 at 02:08:30PM +0200, Mirjam W?ckerlin wrote:

Can I suggest you pass this stuff by me before posting it publicly so
I can point out the faults?

Negative articles on osnews and distrowatch etc do not help Kubuntu.

> 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.

Unpaid isn't quite right, he did have a contract with Canonical when
Kubuntu started.

I'm happy to host any Kubuntu live CDs (localised, updated KDE
packages etc) on kubuntu.org and now that
amu has got his account back he can do it directly.

I've not seen any request to have Canonical host kubuntu.de but I'm
sure they'd be happy to.

> During our endeavours for Kubuntu, several requests to Canonical were
> made. All the mails were addressed to Mrs. Jane Silber, CCO of
> Canonical.

Poor Jane is a busy person, she probably doesn't much wish to ansewr
random accusationary e-mails.

> 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.

Everything needs more developers but Canonical wants to be self
sufficient, since they don't yet make much money from Kubuntu it
doesn't make much sense to put in more resources.  It is also the case
that all of the ubuntu team helps with Kubuntu as needed, from the
buildds to packaging openoffice and making the CDs everyone helps out.

> 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?

That Kubuntu will get shipit support the same as Ubuntu, that will
only happen if the live installer gets finished which I've now had to
time time out of to answer this.

Kubuntu is supported commercially by Canonical same as Ubuntu, ask
them for a support contract and they'll be very happy to oblige.

> 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).

This contradicts the last paragraph.  SMIME support uses unreleased
software so I chose to remove it, not Canonical.

> 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?

Please go ahead.  If anyone wants to sponsor another developer or
three that would obviously be welcome.

> 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.

There are planned updated breezy CDs after the password problem was
found in the installer, but Colin hasn't had time to make them.
Otherwise breezy-updates and breezy-security are available, the idea
of a release is that it's a release and is final.

> 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.

Whenever someone says "I'd like to translate kubuntu.org into another
langauge" I say "great, here's the sources please work out a nice
scheme to make that work".  And nobody ever gets back to me.  If you
want to work on this please please do but so far I've just had idle promises.

> 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.

I don't know the details here, it sounds like personalities are
getting in the way.  Kubuntu can't live without Ubuntu, equally Ubuntu
loco groups needs to understand that Kubuntu communities will often
want their own websites and IRC channels etc, I suggest you
work with ubuntu Deutschland e.V. to make sure they have the trademark
and that they support the kubuntu.de site.

> 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?

I've not heard of that, who is it and what are they doing?
The kubuntu.de and kubuntu.eu domains are both owned by Amu so I don't
see the problem.
Probably Canonical is too busy to start a lawsuit in Germany.

As I see it you have no valid complains in this list so please reopen
kubuntu.de.  (From talking to other German Kubuntu users they seem to
suggest that they'll just start using ubuntuusers.de if this nonsense
continues.)

Jonathan

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