Update to the Community

[Ryan Gauger]

On 05/28/2012 06:14 PM, David Wonderly wrote:
>
> Hey everyone.
>
> I know that it has been a while since I have made any updates to you guys.
>
> Earlier this month, developer Jonathan Riddle and I were both at UDS 
> (Ubuntu Developer Summit) and during that time we had a meeting with 
> Canonical about the trademark. While not all of the paperwork is 
> signed or finalized just yet, I wanted to update everyone on what 
> happened and where we are at in this Trademark thing.
>
> For starters, I know that there has been a lot of talk about changing 
> the name of Kubuntu. As of right now there are plans to change the 
> name. Any name change talks were to prepare for a worst case scenario. 
> Seeing how well the talks went with Canonical, I cannot see any 
> reasons we would change our name.
>
> Another thing I want address and make very clear is the role Blue 
> Systems is playing in Kubuntu.
>
> Blue Systems is a small company that is paying people to develop key 
> pieces of the KDE ecosphere. This means that their role is a monetary 
> role. They are helping to sponsor the development of Kubuntu with the 
> hiring of Jonathan Riddell. Kubuntu is still sponsored by Canonical as 
> well.
>
> Now I can hear everyone now, "But didn't they drop sponsorship of 
> Kubuntu that started this whole thing?"
>
> Sort of.
>
> What Canonical dropped was COMMERCIAL support of Kubuntu. This means 
> that companies can no longer buy paid support from Canonical for 
> Kubuntu. It means that Jonathan Riddell was going to be reassigned 
> within the Desktop Team at Canonical. And lastly, it means that 
> Canonical will no longer be making Swag or Pressed CDs for Kubuntu.
>
> Canonical still pays for a lot in Kubuntu. The hosting of code and 
> providing the infastructer that we have, provides the iso spinning 
> services, QA tools, sponsorships to UDS, Trakemark fees for 33 
> countries for the name Kubuntu (not just under the *buntu protection 
> but, full on Kubuntu) and lastly, the legal protection for all of this.
>
> So as you can see, our relationship has not chnaged all that much 
> within the Kubuntu/Canonical relations. Yes, there has been some 
> changes but, there are benifits to the changing as well and I firmly 
> believe that the benifits greatly outweigh anything else.
>
> There are talks about Kubuntu being able to create a non profit 
> foundation to become a legal entity. This will allow the Kubuntu 
> council to push Kubuntu to new heighths and also allow us to do a few 
> very important things. it will allow us to build a Kubuntu store and 
> it will also allow us to take donations, money to be placed in a 
> budget and receive finactial support.
>
> From a developers view, we are moving from the msin repositories and 
> inti universe. This will give us more freedom of what we can include 
> into our distro.
>
> Overall, I think we can all see how much better and stronger we can be 
> when this is all said and done. Working together, I am beyond 
> confident that not only can we make Kubuntu the best KDE distro on the 
> planet but, we can put Kubuntu on the map in very large ways.
>
> Another amazing thing that happened is that Kubuntu was given an HUGE 
> opportunity to push Kubuntu Active (KDE Plasma Active for tablet) onto 
> actual tablet hardware.
>
> ZaReason is a company here in the US that builds and ships computers 
> with Linux, Ubuntu and distros, preinstalled. Later this year, they 
> will be selling the ZaTab. It's a tablet with the same size and feel 
> of the iPad2. It already will be shipping with CyanogenMod 9 on it. 
> Well, we were given a couple of these tablets to development reasons 
> so that we can also give them the option to ship Kubuntu Active 12.10 
> on them at the end of the year. This is very very exciting for us as 
> it moves us ahead in the tablet ready distros.
>
> If you have any questions please, feel free to ask them.
>
> Cheers all!
>
> Dave
>
>
>
Does this mean that I will no longer be able to purchase Kubuntu 
pens/stickers/shirts in the Canonical Store as well? If not, I'm glad I 
bought some Kubuntu merchandise already! Thanks!
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