Should Ubuntu merge with Mint?

[raprap30]

Hey, maybe Mac and MS should merge, too. Why don't they all merge and that way we have no choice! Sorry, but one silly question without much thought.

Haha, then Faildows will ruin Mac, which will make Linux the only other choice and then Linux will try to pwn them. Lmao

[FrostyC]

Actually people seem to get this confused. The gstreamer MP3 decoder and libdvdcss are free software! It's not closed source at all, you can download the source for both. The problem is it's free software in questionable legality (in some countries; especially libdvdcss).

Yes, but they are still Proprietary/Restricted formats. Not really "Free" as in "Freedom". So they are not in place in the OS until the user puts them there. Mint is up and playing MP3s, while newer users are still reading this page:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats

When I talked about the open source problem, I meant the (Mainly Windows) Applications I use, that really has nothing to do with Mint though, because almost all Linux Apps are Open Source. But, hopefully with Ubuntu at the helm of Linux OSes people will start making Apps more Linux Friendly & open source.

[coldReactive]

About the codecs: Canonical is going to make you pay for them from the repos as of 10.10 thanks to the software center :3

So it wouldn't matter if mint and ubuntu merged, to me anyway.

[Mr. Picklesworth]

Do you seriously think the reason Ubuntu doesn’t include those codecs is that we have been “ignoring that fact”?

(And did you know that Mac OS X doesn’t ship with a WMV codec either?)

It costs $20 (and a lot of confusion) to play mpeg 1 and 2, too

[mpt]

What "Ubuntu" should do is provide more choices during install (maybe an options to select that you're an advanced user),

Microsoft tried that for Windows 95 until user testing showed that it didn’t work (PDF, p476). The Nautilus developers tried it in version 1.0 but eventually realized that it didn’t work. Microsoft tried it again in Office 2007 until user testing showed that it didn’t work.

or at the very least provide choice between KDE and GNOME.

I didn’t realize there were still people who seriously think this is a good idea.

[wulfgang]

That's like asking "Should Debain merge with Ubuntu?" No. In my opinion, one of the things that makes Linux great is that developers can learn off of other(or previous) distros. Like the way Linux came from Minix, and Minix came from Unix.(Or something like that.)

[jonmartin]

No, why? Those who like Mint can use Mint and ditto for Ubuntu. I think it's ideal to have a few spinoffs adding value that's for various reasons not included in Ubuntu.

With "one" distro trying to be everything for everyone we'll just end up with something that resembles ... Windows.

[coldReactive]

With "one" distro trying to be everything for everyone we'll just end up with something that resembles ... Windows.

Like ReactOS, lol.

[vexorian]

-Mint contains closed source software and codecs.
We all love free, open source software, but open source software is not inherently superior in quality to closed source, nor is closed source software always evil or avoidable.

Whether promoting proprietary formats like thus is good or not is a huge discussion, I think it is not.

But you CAN'T distribute non-libre stuff like that. Mint gets away with it by not being mainstream (distrowatch numbers are the least relevant of all stats). You can't merge mint and ubuntu without getting rid of distribution of these things which are ... forbidden to be redistributed.

The top bar pwns.

Edit: And honestly, compare to five years ago, these things are DEAD EASY TO INSTALL. Even windows requires installation of codecs and flash, and you don't see it being given as a reason for lack of marketshare.

[DonaldJ]

Definitely not...

Ubuntu is HQ.. Mint is an offspring... That would be "incest"...