As the buzz continues with all of the changes happening to Kubuntu, I wanted to sit down a moment and give a clear update as to what is going on. This is to help update the community as large with the updates and it is my desire to keep everyone informed. So, sit back as I take you through what has happened and what we can look forward to in the future. Let’s start at the beginning shall we? Back in February, Kubuntu Developer, Jonathan Riddell announced that Canonical was going to be dropping commercial support for Kubuntu. Due to this there was a lot of unanswered questions about the future of Kubuntu.
Fast forward for earlier this month when it was announced that Blue Systems was going to be sponsering Kubuntu. Not only that but, they have hired both Jonathan Riddell and Aurélien Gâteau.
Our partnership with Blue Systems also means that Kubuntu will remain a community run distribution. While we will have two developers and a budget that will able us to attend both UDS and KDE events.
As always, Kubuntu will stay on top of it’s game as it continues to work closely with KDE to release the best up to date KDE software.
However, if you have read some other things there are a few things that have members of the community and Kubuntu Council concerned. One of those is the Canonical (Ubuntu) Trademark policy and some of the wording.
The reason why we are concerned is that we have discovered how widespread Kubuntu really is. We have had people reach out asking us if there is a way to provide commercial support contracts. As the current policies state, as long as we are using the Kubuntu name, it is registered to Canonical. In the policy there are things that this type of support are restricted.
Restricted use that requires a trademark licence
Permission from us is necessary to use any of the Trademarks under any circumstances other than those specifically permitted above. These include:
- Any commercial use. OEM services
- Use on or in relation to a software product that includes or is built on top of a product supplied by us, if there is any commercial intent associated with that product.
- Use in a domain name or URL.
- Use for merchandising purposes, e.g. on t-shirts and the like.
- Use of a name which includes the letters BUNTU in relation to computer hardware or software.
- Services relating to any of the above.
So, as you can see, these are some services we would like to provide but, have to have a release and blessings from Canonical.
As of now, we are waiting to see what happens.
I will keep you all updated as to what is going on as time moves on.