That post was written by Matthew Garrett, and he has written many similar posts against Ubuntu over the years.
His previous rant was about the snaps in Ubuntu. That they are not fully secure (contained) because Linux distributions are still based X11. It's a one-sided hate directed specifically against Ubuntu.
You can install an "Ubuntu" on OVH, but the kernel is a modified kernel. When you try to install standard services that are meant to work with Ubuntu, they do not work with the "OVH Ubuntu".
Apparently, Ubuntu contacted OVH to make the Ubuntu kernel closer to the stock Ubuntu kernel but OVH did not bother to do anything about it.
Then, Ubuntu told them that they break the trademark and one of the things they can do is get a license for the existing messy "OHV handicapped ubuntu", so that they keep providing this mess.
At that point, the founder of OVH went on twitter and a shitstorm ensued.
The whole affair reflects badly on the OVH founder. But many people will keep another impression in their mind.
This is Matthew Garrett (mjg59), and he has a hate against the Ubuntu project that goes back several years.
The way he works is that he finds something that he interprets as questionable (his words: "it can be interpreted as meaning"), and then starts screaming because he needs ASAP an official reply.
The climate-change deniers employ this technique and you get ordinary people questioning the scientists.
His employer should comment on this since what CoreOS is doing and what is offered by Ubuntu Core do overlap.
The GPL says that the software is "as is", no warranty of any kind. Similarly, I could scream to have the developers to perform some testing and provide a bit of warranty.
With Ubuntu and any other software, you get the source and it is up to you to deal with the replacement of any trademark strings. What packages are included in Ubuntu, changes all the time and the code changes as well. How can a policy document be explicit when there is no infrastructure yet in place to deal with those code changes?
CentOS was in this same position and they did the work without bitching to Redhat.
Garrett is proposing another wild goose chase, just because he dislikes Ubuntu so much.
Even the GPL licence has a "no warranty clause". The software is "as is", it is your problem to keep the pieces when it breaks. You can imagine a person spinning this into "you cannot trust open-source because they do not offer just a bit of warranty".
So Garret contacted Ubuntu for some unspecified project that he claimed he wanted to start. In reality, he was mining for quotes to misinterpret. Sad git.
That's repeated all too often and it gets stuck into the mind of people. But is it actually true?
Ubuntu is still heavily based on Debian and still reuses most of the packages. There has been a gradual move towards systemd and systemd is default in Ubuntu 15.10.
To me, mjg59 comes out as a bitter person. He used to work for Canonical in the early days of Ubuntu. He shared the vision for a usable open-source desktop.
Then came the new GNOME 3 and the particular way that GNOME development works. It was not workable to offer to the users a stable and distinct user experience. So, Unity was created and all hell broke loose.
Now, when Mark farts, they scream "Terrorist gas attack!".
A couple of days ago there was some open-source appreciation day by the Ubuntu community and it looks very suspicious that mjg95 coincided his rant with this.
I think the previous rant was also coinciding with some similar positive Ubuntu announcement.
It looks even more difficult to get an open-source desktop. mjg59's attitude is like "if it is not ours, let's f* their efforts anyway".
The author of that article says "I know from personal experience that today [2005] Microsoft takes application compatibility very seriously".
And if you want to install Windows on a computer that already has a Linux distribution installed (dual-boot), then Windows will replace the existing boot manager, making it really difficult to boot Linux. That thing used to happen then, and it still happens now (2015).
His previous rant was about the snaps in Ubuntu. That they are not fully secure (contained) because Linux distributions are still based X11. It's a one-sided hate directed specifically against Ubuntu.
If only someone revealed to him Oracle's "Unbreakable" Linux and http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/linuxbulle...