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henke54
January 9th, 2014, 12:25 AM
Last month when SteamOS was publicly made available in beta form there were many surprised that Valve based their Linux distribution off Debian rather than Ubuntu, which they had been heavily promoting up to this point for Linux gaming. There was some speculation why Valve went with Debian, but Gabe Newell has now confirmed the reasoning for not basing their operating system off Ubuntu.

Some speculated Valve went with Debian over Ubuntu due to not having to deal with the Mir Display Server, Canonical wanting to be paid for using Ubuntu Core, Valve not liking the direction of Ubuntu, etc. According to Gabe at yesterday's press conference, the reasoning for going with Debian over Ubuntu was simply described as "legal issues", according to our German friends at Heise.de.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU2Mjc
:roll:

lykwydchykyn
January 9th, 2014, 04:33 AM
So is it according to Gabe or according to Heise.de? 'cuz so far I have read three articles on this and none of them quotes Gabe.

QIII
January 9th, 2014, 04:39 AM
Great way to stir up rumors -- use cryptic phrases like "legal issues."

Copper Bezel
January 9th, 2014, 05:33 AM
Indeed. If Canonical was asking for payment, and Steam preferred not to pay, would that not itself constitute a legal dispute? = /

I'm anxious to hear facts about this, though. Steam was Canonical's ace in the hole. Frankly, they should be considering paying Valve.

grahammechanical
January 9th, 2014, 02:25 PM
Jono Bacon was asked about this on his recent Q & A on Ubuntu On-Air

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H51N929T2sE&feature=c4-overview&list=UUm7OifwnZoMCChidCJZQruQ

Stream is not distributed without charge, is it? It is a business venture. So, is Canonical but we do not get charged for using Ubuntu. If the Steam developers want to claim that their OS is a form of Ubuntu then they should pay a copyright fee as they are using Ubuntu for making a profit. They did not want to do that. They wanted to benefit financially from all the work being done by Ubuntu developers, many of whom work unpaid, but they did not want to pay a copyright fee for using Canonical copyrights.

Now they have to do their own work setting up Debian to their liking. I think that this is a good move for Ubuntu. Any bugs in the Steam OS cannot now be put at the door of Ubuntu maintainers to fix.

There is a big difference between an application user interface running on any install of Ubuntu and an OS that is self contained and comes pre-installed on hardware (Steam gaming machines). And all at a price.

Regards.

Copper Bezel
January 9th, 2014, 05:36 PM
That's fair. I'm just not 100% sure which party actually benefits from the Ubuntu splash screen coming up when the user boots his or her Steam Box.

monkeybrain20122
January 9th, 2014, 05:52 PM
That's fair. I'm just not 100% sure which party actually benefits from the Ubuntu splash screen coming up when the user boots his or her Steam Box.

I agree with that. I think Canonical could benefit a lot from the publicity. Canonical may have the right to payment but in this instance it might have made sense to waive it in exchange for a big acknowledgement.

zer010
January 9th, 2014, 06:07 PM
I agree with that. I think Canonical could benefit a lot from the publicity. Canonical may have the right to payment but in this instance it might have made sense to waive it in exchange for a big acknowledgement.

I tend to agree with this, but if the steamboxes flop that's a good bit of bad publicity for Ubuntu. I guess Steam would probably have to upstream changes to Canonical which would need more manpower to check, thus increasing cost. Steam would have had to offset that cost somehow and free publicity of a free product wouldn't cut it.

Copper Bezel
January 9th, 2014, 06:28 PM
Really, it just goes back to "Canonical has to make money somehow." I think it's less about increased costs and more about actually having an opportunity to turn a profit. More users is more free testing, right? But honestly, I didn't realize that Ubuntu was hoping to license out. I thought this was going to look more like their partnership with Google, where they get to say that the software is free while taking home a consulting fee.

Really, though, I don't know why they're dinking around with the best chance they have to mainstream Mir. = /

mips
January 9th, 2014, 07:07 PM
Indeed. If Canonical was asking for payment, and Steam preferred not to pay, would that not itself constitute a legal dispute? = /

I'm anxious to hear facts about this, though. Steam was Canonical's ace in the hole. Frankly, they should be considering paying Valve.


Jono Bacon was asked about this on his recent Q & A on Ubuntu On-Air

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H51N929T2sE&feature=c4-overview&list=UUm7OifwnZoMCChidCJZQruQ

Stream is not distributed without charge, is it? It is a business venture. So, is Canonical but we do not get charged for using Ubuntu. If the Steam developers want to claim that their OS is a form of Ubuntu then they should pay a copyright fee as they are using Ubuntu for making a profit. They did not want to do that. They wanted to benefit financially from all the work being done by Ubuntu developers, many of whom work unpaid, but they did not want to pay a copyright fee for using Canonical copyrights.

Now they have to do their own work setting up Debian to their liking. I think that this is a good move for Ubuntu. Any bugs in the Steam OS cannot now be put at the door of Ubuntu maintainers to fix.

There is a big difference between an application user interface running on any install of Ubuntu and an OS that is self contained and comes pre-installed on hardware (Steam gaming machines). And all at a price.

Regards.

This reminds me of a similar issue with linux mint. If Debian were to adopt the same approach towards Ubuntu what would the sentiment be then?

I still think this is gonna turn nasty and their's gonna be some lashback at some stage.

Copper Bezel
January 9th, 2014, 08:11 PM
If Debian were to adopt the same approach towards Ubuntu as whose approach to whom? Debian's to Mint? Ubuntu's (previous) (un)relationship with Mint? Ubuntu's with Valve? (Ubuntu does not use Debian branding, which is what Valve didn't want to pay for from Ubuntu.)

And which bit is going to turn nasty?

mips
January 9th, 2014, 08:29 PM
If Debian were to adopt the same approach towards Ubuntu as whose approach to whom? Debian's to Mint? Ubuntu's (previous) (un)relationship with Mint? Ubuntu's with Valve? (Ubuntu does not use Debian branding, which is what Valve didn't want to pay for from Ubuntu.)


Let's see, mint does not use ubuntu branding, valve could easily strip out the ubuntu branding it's not complicated. I sense a bit of zealotry here, an objective person would question where all this is going.

Oh well suppose I just see things differently. That concludes my .02c worth.

QIII
January 9th, 2014, 08:38 PM
Stripping Ubuntu branding is exactly the point.

If Steam had just stripped the Ubuntu branding, this discussion would not be happening.

You want to use the branding, you pay. You want to base it on Ubuntu unbranded, no problem.

Where is the zealotry?

monkeybrain20122
January 9th, 2014, 08:45 PM
Bacon said that was only his guess. So we don't really know.

mips
January 9th, 2014, 08:58 PM
Stripping Ubuntu branding is exactly the point.

If Steam had just stripped the Ubuntu branding, this discussion would not be happening.

You want to use the branding, you pay. You want to base it on Ubuntu unbranded, no problem.

Where is the zealotry?

And Linux Mint which uses no Ubuntu branding?

I doubt Valve would have an issue stripping out the Ubuntu branding. Does not really matter now as they did not use ubuntu for steamos.

BDNiner
January 10th, 2014, 02:28 AM
I think the relationship would be mutually beneficial. It is a shame that they couldn't work it out.

Copper Bezel
January 10th, 2014, 04:55 AM
Agreed.


And Linux Mint which uses no Ubuntu branding?

I doubt Valve would have an issue stripping out the Ubuntu branding. Does not really matter now as they did not use ubuntu for steamos.
Then you misunderstand what was being claimed, and I still don't understand what you're claiming, which is why I asked for clarification. Whose relationship with whom?

Again, the only thing on the table that Valve would ever have to pay for is the Ubuntu branding, which is the only part of the package Ubuntu owns. Ubuntu distributes closed-source components, but its own software is all open.

Mint doesn't use anything from Ubuntu, because it's now Debian-based. Back when it was Ubuntu-based, you're exactly correct that it used no Ubuntu branding and wasn't required to pay a dime to Canonical, which was exactly my point. As I understand it, Ubuntu was also an awful upstream to deal with for the Mint folks, which is probably why they switched to Debian.

I am, in fact, questioning where this is all going. I'm not assuming that I know where it's going, and I can't assume that I know where you think it's going until you tell me. I don't appreciate being called a zealot for asking for clarification on loaded references you expect me to get that I literally don't understand. = /

craig10x
January 10th, 2014, 06:29 AM
Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) is debian based...but all the other versions of mint (including the main edition) are based on ubuntu or it's various community distributions such as Xubuntu (Mint XFCE edition) and Kubuntu (mint KDE edition) so where did you get the idea that linux mint is no longer based on ubuntu? And they don't pay anything to ubuntu because it is open source and they don't use any ubuntu branding of course on the distribution itself...So, other then LMDE, all the other editions of mint use plenty of ubuntu...

impliedconsent2
January 10th, 2014, 08:09 AM
Bah - I agree with Valve/SteamOS. Eliminate the middle-man (ubuntu). I can imagine the head-shed at the time - "...'ya know, this steam-thingy business plan looks good. We need to get in on this for marketing...lets charge them a boatload and demand they use our developers..."

Copper Bezel
January 10th, 2014, 11:15 AM
Ubuntu only benefits from exposure if the product exposed is functional. They would, indeed, have a new downstream to be very careful about developing for. So it's only "let's make them use our developers" as much as it is "and we hereby all become unofficial developers for Valve."


Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) is debian based...but all the other versions of mint (including the main edition) are based on ubuntu or it's various community distributions such as Xubuntu (Mint XFCE edition) and Kubuntu (mint KDE edition) so where did you get the idea that linux mint is no longer based on ubuntu?
A Mint user. He seems to have exaggerated. Obviously, Mint is quite open about its Ubuntu base.


And they don't pay anything to ubuntu because it is open source and they don't use any ubuntu branding of course on the distribution itself...
Now you're saying a thing I said as if you're correcting me. You corrected me on the other thing. This thing is a thing I said.

Edit: Best I can tell, mips was saying, "what if Debian started treating Ubuntu like Ubuntu treats its downstream," originally meaning Steam and, after the branding thing was clarified, meaning Mint. I think there are two answers to that question. First, yes, being downstream of Ubuntu seems like an unfavorable place to be, although the issue with Valve actually illustrates nothing about that issue, because the deal was rejected on the basis of something that doesn't apply to either Debian's or Mint's relationship to Ubuntu. Second, Ubuntu has a very strong relationship with Debian that's not comparable to Mint's respin of Ubuntu, which uses Ubuntu code but doesn't engage with Ubuntu developers in my limited knowledge of the subject.

The Ubuntu-Debian relationship is the kind of relationship (between people and projects, not just codebases) I would have liked to see Canonical form with Valve.

Edit again: All built on the assumption that Valve really did reject Ubuntu because they didn't like what the logo would cost, which is very much an assumption about an open question, so insert "apparently" where appropriate above.

craig10x
January 10th, 2014, 04:15 PM
@ Copper Bezel: On the second part...yeah i was just confirming what you said not correcting...sorry if you misinterpreted what i meant there... :)

As to the first part...yes, mint certainly does not hide the fact they are ubuntu based (all editions except lmde of course) but some of the mint fans there always seem to hope Clem will stop using ubuntu and go debian all the way...there are some real ubuntu haters over there...which is funny because Clem who develops mint is obviously pretty fond of ubuntu...

monkeybrain20122
January 10th, 2014, 04:34 PM
mips was referring to this http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2192745
That does sound disturbing but the story has not been followed up. I think his (mips') point is that Valve might have backed away from Ubuntu because it fears possible legal dispute down the road,--if it could happen to Mint..

Copper Bezel
January 10th, 2014, 05:36 PM
Oh, wow. Yeah, I missed that one. I think I'd back away, too. = / I mean, the repos are a service and all, but ... damn.

buzzingrobot
January 10th, 2014, 07:11 PM
So is it according to Gabe or according to Heise.de? 'cuz so far I have read three articles on this and none of them quotes Gabe.

The Heise piece doesn't quote or attribute it to anyone, It just asserts it. Then, we have Phoronix using the "some people" gambit.

In case anyone hasn't noticed, the state of Linux journalism varies between miserable and awful.

(On using Ubuntu repos and servers: As far as I know, nothing in FOSS licensing requires that Ubuntu or any other Linux product maintain their binaries on wide open public servers. It's just something that's been customary for years. Distributions like Mint that draw the majority of their packages from Ubuntu repos do, in fact, get something of a free ride from Canonical. My own guess is that Canonical is not concerned about that, but is thinking about something else.

Red Hat provides a major exception to this customary "binaries on open servers" approach. RHEL source is thoroughly open source and is available to anyone on Red Hat servers. RHEL binaries are not. They are available only to people/businesses who have purchased support subscriptions. CentOS, and the other RHEL clones, download RHEL source, rebuild it and host those binaries on their own servers and mirrors. Mint, or anyone else, could take the same approach with Ubuntu: Download the source, rebuild it, and host it on their own servers. )

Copper Bezel
January 10th, 2014, 08:25 PM
Sure, and that's reasonable, but I'd guess that Valve doesn't mind a piece if Debian will do their compiling and hosting for free. = P

buzzingrobot
January 10th, 2014, 08:42 PM
Sure, and that's reasonable, but I'd guess that Valve doesn't mind a piece if Debian will do their compiling and hosting for free. = P

If Debian wants to provide free resources to a commerical enterprise, that's its business. I wouldn't do it.

We're all speculating, though, about the content of the Canonical-Mint conversation(s).

King Dude
January 10th, 2014, 09:01 PM
More like because Debian has less extra crap than Ubuntu, which I can understand. But hey, if SteamOS can't get Mir, there is always Wayland.

Copper Bezel
January 10th, 2014, 09:54 PM
Either one would be a heavily customized install. The amount of "extra crap" wouldn't matter. Steambox is a dedicated game machine.

LillyDragon
January 11th, 2014, 06:28 AM
Indeed, Ubuntu by itself with the Unity DE + Compiz isn't very optimal for games. (Unity is still sacrificing a huge chunk of OpenGL performance on some hardware.) Valve clearly wanted an OS that was both modern and conscious of performance. I'm pretty sure the amount of changes would be more drastic than any Ubuntu flavor, and they may have provided significant changes to the kernel too, so the Debian route seems more appropriate, regardless of the legality of Ubuntu branding involved.

mips
January 11th, 2014, 11:40 AM
Oh, wow. Yeah, I missed that one. I think I'd back away, too. = / I mean, the repos are a service and all, but ... damn.

I've heard people mention it's their servers, their resources. This would be true if all the repos around the world were hosted on ubuntu servers or server space rented by them but this is not the case. Many of these are hosted by private companies or public institutions at no cost to Ubuntu/Canonical, it's hosted as a free service to isp clients or for the public good by university networks or non-profit organisations.

I mean how many distros are based on Ubuntu and use their repositories, I'm sure it's hundreds? Why pick on Mint? I think it's because Mint is so popular and seen as competition. If you are gonna have rules you should be consistent and also go after the other Ubuntu derivitives, only fair is it not? What if you are a small distro now and become very popular in the not to distant future, are they gonna come after you as well? People should really think about this.

buzzingrobot
January 11th, 2014, 12:19 PM
I've heard people mention it's their servers, their resources. This would be true if all the repos around the world were hosted on ubuntu servers or server space rented by them but this is not the case. Many of these are hosted by private companies or public institutions at no cost to Ubuntu/Canonical...

That's only speculation. Your point about mirrors increases the likelihood that the issue, if it really exists, is about something else.

lykwydchykyn
January 13th, 2014, 05:00 PM
If Debian wants to provide free resources to a commerical enterprise, that's its business.

Fortunately they've been happy to do so for years. That's what releasing a free-as-in-freedom OS is all about. But I think you have the scenario a little wrong; it's not so much about one group of people making something for another group of people, it's about a group of people who need something working together to make something all of them can benefit from. Companies like Corel, Xandros, Linspire, Canonical, HP, and others who have benefitted from Debian have also contributed back and made it a better product for all users. I suspect the entire Debian ecosystem (including Ubuntu) will benefit from Valve's use of Debian, over the long run.

Regarding the alleged "legal issues", it might be worth considering that the fears were not aimed at legal repercussion from Canonical, but rather at the nonfree firmware/drivers and other such things that Debian takes care to remove from its main repos. If you're distributing something worldwide, it's nice to know that what you're distributing is legally in the clear worldwide. Just a theory.

buzzingrobot
January 13th, 2014, 09:30 PM
Fortunately they've been happy to do so for years. That's what releasing a free-as-in-freedom OS is all about.


I don't agree with that. The rules of FOSS begin and end with the licenses. Opening servers to the public, come one or come all, is only a cultural expectation that no one has the right to impose on anyone else.


...t's not so much about one group of people making something for another group of people, it's about a group of people who need something working together to make something all of them can benefit from.

That's all fine and good, but it seems premised on the notion that the self-perceived wellbeing, and ideological purity, of the FOSS developer community is more important than the creation of better software -- which I define as software that is useful in new ways -- for users. As a desktop user, my interest in developers is their capacity to create products for me. In that regard, I do not believe FOSS developers deliver more innovative software than their colleagues, say, in the independent commerical OS X developer arena. If anything, the ease of making minor forks is a drag on innovation.


Regarding the alleged "legal issues", it might be worth considering that the fears were not aimed at legal repercussion from Canonical, but rather at the nonfree firmware/drivers and other such things that Debian takes care to remove from its main repos. If you're distributing something worldwide, it's nice to know that what you're distributing is legally in the clear worldwide. Just a theory.

Possibly. However, I find Debian's approach to nonfree firmware and such to be exceedingly annoying. Requiring users to locate and install files that Debian devs refuse to dirty their hands with strikes me as making users bear the burden of someone else's ideology. Maybe I'm wrong, but the last time I installed Debian, the installer didn't mention up front the potential need to go chase down firmware or drivers and burn them to a USB. It's really irritating to get halfway through an install only to be told you need to go find another machine and a USB stick and hunt for some files to make your hardware work. (I understand trying to avoid legal hassles by avoiding certain closed products. I'm just put off by couching it in self-righteouos ideology and by proselytizing in general.)

In any case, Valve will need to provide those nonfree files in their product if they want customers to be able to use it without jumping through the same annoying ritual Debian forces on people.

lykwydchykyn
January 13th, 2014, 11:18 PM
Possibly. However, I find Debian's approach to nonfree firmware and such to be exceedingly annoying.

How convenient you find it as an end user is one thing, how convenient you find it as an organization redistributing a derivative work is another. If I'm creating a new distro and want to avoid any entanglements from redistributing proprietary software, Debian's main repo is a safe place to start.

mips
January 13th, 2014, 11:25 PM
Opening servers to the public, come one or come all, is only a cultural expectation that no one has the right to impose on anyone else.

But they don't own or pay for all those mirrors around the world so how can they now say you may not use them?

buzzingrobot
January 13th, 2014, 11:34 PM
How convenient you find it as an end user is one thing, how convenient you find it as an organization redistributing a derivative work is another... avoid any entanglements from redistributing proprietary software, Debian's main repo is a safe place to start.

If Valve's Linux products don't need proprietary software to function, then the question has no point.

If Valve's Linux products do need proprietary software to function, then they need to include that software (or write their own) or be guilty of selling broken products. Debian, with its emphasis on ideology before functionality, can get away with this because like-minded people will do the necesary dance. But, how could Valve expect to sell a product to ordinary consumers if it won't work when they start it up?

buzzingrobot
January 13th, 2014, 11:55 PM
But they don't own or pay for all those mirrors around the world so how can they now say you may not use them?

I didn't say that.

They *do* pay for their primary servers that others mirror. They have a right to set the parameters for use of those servers. Someone like Mint, which relies on Canonical servers and Ubuntu binaries to market a competitive Ubuntu spin, should expect to be considered in a different light than an organization that only mirrors the servers.

Canonical would be in exactly the same position vis-a-vis Debian if it included Debian servers in Ubuntu's default source list.

If server use is really the point of contention (and we don't know) then Mint should just recompile Ubuntu source and host the binaries on its own servers, just as CentOS, and others, do with RHEL source.

(I suspect this has to do with Canonical's phone and tablet efforts. How they can sell FOSS products to hardware vendors and then prevent a third party from taking that FOSS source and creating a competitive product escapes me. Why would Phone Vendor One do a deal with Canonical when it knows Phone Vendor Two can legally use the same source to undersell them with a clone product? If I was running Canonical, I'd create a legally distinct foundation and spin desktop Ubuntu off to it, and free the corporation to do what it needs to do, FOSS or proprietary, to be profitable in other devices.

monkeybrain20122
January 14th, 2014, 12:03 AM
It would be news to me that Mint even runs on Mobile. So this kinds of doesn't make sense. Anyway, there is no point in speculating, there is just no way to tell from that few sentences in distrowatch's article and the story apparent has died.

mips
January 14th, 2014, 01:14 AM
If Valve's Linux products do need proprietary software to function, then they need to include that software (or write their own) or be guilty of selling broken products. Debian, with its emphasis on ideology before functionality, can get away with this because like-minded people will do the necesary dance. But, how could Valve expect to sell a product to ordinary consumers if it won't work when they start it up?

Simple, include whatever proprietary stuff you need. Use the debian non-free repos or host your own repo on the side for the proprietary stuff. Would not be the first distro to do this.

buzzingrobot
January 14th, 2014, 01:19 AM
Simple, include whatever proprietary stuff you need. Use the debian non-free repos or host your own repo on the side for the proprietary stuff. Would not be the first distro to do this.

I've been talking about commercial products they sell, not another Linux distribution. That Linux distribution faces the same marketplace hurdles as the rest of Linux.

mips
January 14th, 2014, 01:25 AM
I didn't say that.
They *do* pay for their primary servers that others mirror. They have a right to set the parameters for use of those servers. Someone like Mint, which relies on Canonical servers and Ubuntu binaries to market a competitive Ubuntu spin, should expect to be considered in a different light than an organization that only mirrors the servers.

If people exclude the primary servers and only include the mirrors then I can't see how they have a say in that. They don't own or pay for the servers and the software is released under the GPL. I suspect if they did try something like that then the hosts would drop them as they are basically doing ubuntu a favour while ubuntu is now trying to dictate terms on who can access the hosts' servers, it doesn't work like that.




Canonical would be in exactly the same position vis-a-vis Debian if it included Debian servers in Ubuntu's default source list.

If server use is really the point of contention (and we don't know) then Mint should just recompile Ubuntu source and host the binaries on its own servers, just as CentOS, and others, do with RHEL source.

Yes they could do that and it's really easy and quick to get hosted for free around the globe, we recently went through this process (ongoing) with another project.




(I suspect this has to do with Canonical's phone and tablet efforts. How they can sell FOSS products to hardware vendors and then prevent a third party from taking that FOSS source and creating a competitive product escapes me. Why would Phone Vendor One do a deal with Canonical when it knows Phone Vendor Two can legally use the same source to undersell them with a clone product? If I was running Canonical, I'd create a legally distinct foundation and spin desktop Ubuntu off to it, and free the corporation to do what it needs to do, FOSS or proprietary, to be profitable in other devices.

Only way I can see them doing this is by having proprietary code in those images, they can fork GPL projects but they can't change the license to a proprietary one so it means they would have to create proprietary code from scratch that is required by those devices to function. But then again the linux community being the hackers that they are would reverse engineer whatever they did and create an alternative opensource substitute anybody could use. I really don't see where ubuntu is going with this, whatever they try there will be a way around it.

buzzingrobot
January 14th, 2014, 01:59 AM
If people exclude the primary servers and only include the mirrors then I can't see how they have a say in that. They don't own or pay for the servers and the software is released under the GPL. I suspect if they did try something like that then the hosts would drop them as they are basically doing ubuntu a favour while ubuntu is now trying to dictate terms on who can access the hosts' servers, it doesn't work like that.

Agreed, and it's all part of the tension between using GPL'd source and trying to sell commercial products. GPL'd source code is a poison pill for any potential Canonical customer who does not want to see the code used to create *their* product released under a license that allows any competitor to use it. I don't see how Canonical can pull that off unless they don't use the GPL for those products. And that brings them a whole new suite of issues.

As long as Canonical releases GPL'd code, Mint or anyone else can get the source, recompile it, and release it. Canonical, in theory, could restrict Mint and Mint users access to Ubuntu servers, but, as you point out, they can't realistically block access to all the mirrors. So, they won't bother. (Altough they might be looking at Mint for compensation for Mint setting up their users to pull from Ubuntu repos. Mint takes a bit of a risk if it puts one of the mirrors in its source list, so it has an interest in staying with the Ubuntu repos.)

If the Distrowatch numbers actually do reflect usage, Canonical may have found that traffic on the Ubuntu servers from Mint users is equal to, or greater than, traffic from Ubuntu users. That'd likely provoke some frowns.

Canonical isn't required by the GPL to put anything on any servers. It's there, especially the binaries, for Canonical's benefit.



Only way I can see them doing this is by having proprietary code in those images, they can fork GPL projects but they can't change the license to a proprietary one so it means they would have to create proprietary code from scratch that is required by those devices to function. But then again the linux community being the hackers that they are would reverse engineer whatever they did and create an alternative opensource substitute anybody could use. I really don't see where ubuntu is going with this, whatever they try there will be a way around it.

I can see them wanting/needing to put proprietary code in device Ubuntu. I can certainly see them being pressured to do that by potential customers. I just don't see how that works, especially given the apparent fixation on convergence. I'd forget about convergence, spin desktop Ubuntu off to a FOSS-committed group, and then dive into the proprietary non-FOSS device market. In that scenario, you could, potentially, have a flow of code from desktop Ubuntu to the devices, but not the other way around. (That's my issue with convergence: i don't see it improving the desktop, while it drags the device effort down.)

Fundamentally, Canonical can't be a business that keeps the FOSS community happy and also makes a profit selling commercial products. Those goals are mutually exclusive.