Cooperation between MEPIS and Kubuntu?

[Donatas G.]

Simon Rönnqvist wrote:
>   Hi!
> 
> Thanks for the answers... This is probably true in general
> But what I'm interested in is, in what way does Kubuntu's and SimplyMEPIS's 
> goals differ. If they should be two separate distros, then why? The only two 
> big differences that I see is that Kubuntu is more pure KDE and pure free 
> software, while as SimplyMEPIS has a bunch of non-free stuff installed by 
> default and also has a bunch of GTK-apps (such as Synaptic).
> 
> Well to be hones, probably 80-90% of the Kubuntu users install non-free stuff 
> such as flash-plugin and JRE. (Which are included in SimplyMEPIS.) Most are 
> also agnostic about GTK stuff, at least installing GIMP. But I understand 
> that some may want the option of keeping their system clean of non KDE stuff 
> or non-free stuff, but allowing such an option without making it unconvinient 
> to install the commonly wanted non-free and/or GTK-stuff should be enough.
> 
> Are there any other major reasons for SimplyMEPIS and Kubuntu to remain 
> separate?

I guess SimplyMEPIS is a business of one person. So it is more than just
technological preferences or ideological convictions at stake. Why would
he wish to get rid of his (already established) brand? Maybe he would
have reasons to do so, but not necessarily.

The real issue is, whether Kubuntu developers would be able to cooperate
with SimplyMEPIS and to draw on the experience and codebase that the
other distro has accumulated.

E.G., simplyMEPIS has long had a graphical installer, that Kubuntu is
working on right now. I have heard from a few people that the sources
for SimplyMEPIS OS center are not available (though built on GPL'd QT),
  but I would wonder, why would Kubuntu want to reinvent the wheel in
case those were available?

A model that would work, I guess, would be for the two distros to agree
to develop and debug the OS GUI base together, then build their own
custom versions of a distribution, and serve two different distributions
based on KDE, with different brands.

Is that kind of cooperation on the agenda?

Donatas Glodenis
KDE Lithuanian translation team coordinator