Update: The issue has been cleared up already. Thanks Satan Jono !
Bad news today. Out of the jealousy of not being able to create one decent default theme for years, Canonical has just decided to shut down the Ubuntu Satanic Edition store (t-shirt and other gadgets).
The reasons are pretty much understandable (and btw they didn’t complain about their domain name yet) but the decision itself imho sucks.
Too easy to be bold on updating behaviour and be scared about death metal.
Update: Jono Bacon (Canonical employee) promised to look after the issue. We trust him, he is from metal
Nevertheless, if you want to make your voice heard, here’s the contact:
Michelle Surtees-Myers
Canonical UK Ltd
mailto:**removed**
Update: The issue has been cleared up already. Thanks Satan Jono !
Not surprised. The new marketing team is paranoid and knows little of FOSS strategy, it seems.
To be honest, I’m surprised they were allowed to call their distro “Ubuntu Satanic Edition” at all. I thought all non official distros had to have the word “Remix” in them to highlight the fact that its unofficial.
They began long before the ‘remix’ thing. Sure, they could have adapted, but changing a project name is never nice.
Imho, Canonical has the rights to protect the Ubuntu trademark as it wants. But this is better explained by the comments in the page of Ubuntu Satanic with the announcement.
However, I’ve never understood how the satanic adjective can stay by side with the word Ubuntu. I though that a person who believe in the ubuntu concept/way of living could be an agnostic/atheist/Muslim/Christian/Jewish/Hindu/Pastafarianist(!)/… peaceful person, who cares about the others.
Maybe I’m just ignorant about this satanic stuff…
@andrea82: leaving aside satanism, which is some kind of agnostic religion, Satanic ubuntu is not really about satanism. Is more about death metal (it even includes 30 minutes of creative commons heavy metal in their LiveCd !)
A stupid move by canonical. Now, I guess they will ban Christian and Muslim editions as well?
Dunno about the Muslim, but the Christian Edition is already dead. Evil always wins
Ubuntu Satanic Edition has already been discriminated by DistroWatch by the way
All sorted! Read http://ubuntusatanic.org/news/cananical-shut-down-ubuntu-se-store/#comment-54818
Stefan, thanks for the kind words by the way, you rock!
Jono
It’s parody. Which is protected in the USA. Why do you think Canonical used their English office?
@Stefano Forenza:
You said: “leaving aside satanism, which is some kind of agnostic religion…”
I have to disagree. As Satan is the invention of organized religion, Satanism is definitely NOT an “agnostic religion”. Come to think of it, “agnostic religion” sounds like of them there oxy-morons, like “professional sports”
@jacques merde: as you may have guessed, I’m not that into Satanism, so I can easily be wrong. Agnostic religion is definitely an oxymoron.
Stefano,
I think it doesn’t pay to be too serious about this stuff. Anyway, I wasn’t heretofore aware of the existence of Ubuntu Satanic Edition. Now, though, I’ll definitely be checking it out. You know, you just can’t buy that kind of PR with a normal advertising budget. Thanks Canonical!
@jacques merde: I can’t really make sense of your last comment. Btw the issue between Canonical and the Satan edition makers is solved, now.
Basically I was just making the observation that “incidents” like this one with Ubuntu SE usually end up generating a lot of free publicity for the party being “oppressed” — much more publicity than they could generate if they had to actually pay cash for it. Think of how many more people (like me, for example) are now aware of the existence of Ubuntu SE because of the buzz this incident has generated in the press and blogosphere.
@jacques merde: sure. By the way, I omitted to note that Ubuntu SE doesn’t do any money. Not even on the items they sell (they’re commission free, to have them as cheap as possible from CafePress).
And is doubtful they’ll ever will.
The importance of issues like this is that they teach the (perceived) how to deal with community and teach the community whether or not a company can recognize a mistake.
Canonical has every right to defend their trademark, but.. is it right ? When to do it, and when not ?
The issue is now solved and Ubuntu SE is marked as a parody, with an explicit license sent from Canonical. It’s a small additional step in building an history of trust.
(I should note they’re perceived as a very ethical company, btw)
Wasn’t Ubuntu CE more or less “deadified” because a great deal of people saw what kind of scam it was?
Either way, I don’t count remasters as separate distributions. I’m of the opinion that to create a new distribution, there needs to be an emphasis on CREATE and NEW. If you’re forking, you still gotta do some actual building and real development. Otherwise it’s just a remaster, a custom install of something that already exists.
Too many remasters of Ubuntu exist. Way too many. And too many of their so-called “creators” try to pass them off as new distros.