Ubuntu and UserLinux

Posted Apr 10, 2005 1:39 UTC (Sun) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link]

No, I don't think so. ;-)

What annoys me is that Bruce can't finish a sentence without stabbing at other Linux distributors that are clearly UserLinux's competitors, Red Hat in particular. What worries me, is that I can't get rid of the feeling that UserLinux is not at all what it pretends to be, and that it might actually harm Open Source.

Look at it closely, and you will find many, many strange contradictions. There is a constant pattern where Bruce is on the moral high ground, and others like Red Hat are the ones abusing the Open Source paradigm. I won't expand on it, because I am reluctant to use LWN as a platform for this kind of criticism. I'll give you a couple of clues though, that are relevant to this article.

• There is no UserLinux community. There is a Debian community. There is an Ubuntu community.
• The UserLinux organization is *not* a non-profit one, it "will be". (Check userlinux.com; there is no userlinux.org.)
• The UserLinux website does not even mention Free Software or Open Source, let alone explain what it is all about. It does mention that the distribution is freely available.