Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

It's really simple. If your distribution is not the popular one, then you are not doing some things the way end users want them done.

End users would probably like all sorts of things that are not within the power of a Linux distribution to provide. I'm pretty sure many end users would greatly enjoy a Linux distribution that came with a free copy of Microsoft Word (running under WINE or something) but not even Linux Mint goes there.

When you make a Linux distribution, you have the basic choice between producing something that obeys applicable laws and therefore must, sadly, omit some stuff that many users would really like to have but that can't be freely distributed, and producing something that includes the stuff in question but ignores the legal issues around it. So far, Linux Mint seems to have successfully evaded the attention of those entities that sue people for distributing stuff they're not supposed to distribute, but that may only be due to the fact that there isn't much point in suing the Linux Mint guys – they don't have the sort of money in the bank that would make suing them worthwhile. This is an option that the bigger outfits like Red Hat, Novell, Ubuntu, or even Debian don't have, so they prefer to obey the law when they have to. It also puts a practical limit on the size that an operation like Linux Mint can attain in its present form, because once they get big enough, money-wise, to become a worthwhile target they will have to rethink how they do things, or the owners of the stuff that they're ripping off today will come for them after all.