General: Banned from Distrowatch

Maybe CE et ME got some official permission from Canonical. You should ask for one :·D.
And then ask to be added as Ubuntu SE, since noone can say that SE is offensive :·D.

i kinda see there point but your right there are others that they show can also be offensive.i love ubuntu satanic keep up the good work.

Hi 6r00k14n,

Thanks for the support. I'll be posting your correspondence soon as we agreed. I'm having a few issues in my private life at the moment, but I'll get round to it soon.

Thanks.

6r00k14n wrote:

I just read about your decision to exclude Ubuntu Satanic Edition from Distrowatch. While I acknowledge that Distrowatch is your website and you can do with it what you will, I find you to be very hypocritical on this issue, and here is why:

1) According to your criteria, Ubuntu Satanic Edition is eligible for listing on Distrowatch. It, like Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, and Gobuntu, has its own page, as well as meeting your other requirements, as documented on your FAQ.

2) Before OpenGEU was forced to change their name from Geubuntu (which I informed you of), did you require its developers to provide written approval for use of the Ubuntu name? I doubt it, but if so, please make a copy available.

3) The thought that you are the protector of the feelings of the visitors of Distrowatch and by not listing Ubuntu Satanic Edition you are providing some kind of public service is laughable. What is truly offensive is that you will list Ubuntu Christian Edition and Muslim Edition (when Christians and Muslims find each others beliefs offensive) but you won't list Satanic Edition, probably because of your ignorance of what Satanism is and your Judeo-Christian bias as to what you have been told it is.

4) Mark Shuttleworth is on record as not having any conflict with Ubuntu Satanic Edition or its developer's use of the Ubuntu name (http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS2432715660.html).

As fan of your site, I find it a terrific resource, but by arbitrarily choosing what gets listed, instead of adhering to the established criteria, diminishes your website's credibility. If you do not want to offend your audience, show consistency and either remove the Chrisition and Muslim editions or include Satanic edition. I would prefer the latter, as I believe that we should make all information available for everyone to then choose which they want, not to hide any information for any reason.

I urge you to reconsider this matter, and do the right thing.

Respectfully,

6r00k14n

P.S. I am in no way affiliated with Ubuntu Satanic Edition, but I like the themes and despise censorship and intolerance.

And his response:

The decision to exclude Ubuntu Satanic Edition has nothing to do with either censorship or with a desire on my part to protect the web site's readership from some evil. It's done for a simple (and very selfish) reason: to preserve my own sanity. Because it doesn't matter what decision I'll take on the matter, somebody will get upset or offended. The result? A flow of complaints and accusations, forum fights, emails similar to yours, none of which is fun to read.

I've been running DistroWatch for over 7 years, so I think I know something about the site's readership. If I decided to exclude a distribution, it was more as a result of my experience and instinct than any fixed rules. As things stand now, I might get a handful of nasty emails from a few "Satanic" or "anti-censorship" fans, but I know that things would be much worse if "reconsidered the matter and did the right thing", as you suggested. Just trust my judgement - it really is better this way.

I can't please everybody. I am sorry that it's you who happens to find himself in the displeased camp, but that's life. I hope you continue visiting DistroWatch despite our differences of opinion.

Regards,

Ladislav

6r00k14n wrote:

So, after being proven disingenuous and hypocritical, you presented me with a "Reductio ad absurdum". Is Penis Linux the best you can come up with? I didn't know that Howard Stern used Linux. Penis Linux, Nazi Linux, Nigger Linux, or "whatever term you wish to use" Linux does not force me to click on the links. Just like with Fedora and openSuSe, I would just ignore the links for any of those, or do you think that just because it is there, it must be read, without the exercise of choice? As far as your suggestions, Nazi Linux would make your site illegal in Germany and Austria, and Nigger Linux is patently offensive to an entire race of people who, at least in the U.S., were enslaved and persecuted, making your argument for the first a legal matter and the second a matter of historical record and how sensitive you choose to be about it. As far as the African-American population is concerned, I'm sure NiggaLinux would be a big hit, and maybe Penis Linux could be geared toward porn stars.

While I am bothered by your objection, I am more concerned with your hypocrisy. You list Devil-Linux and display the logos of both VoltaLinux and FreeBSD, as well (just view those pages to see my point). I guess you don't have a problem with Satan, as long as he is referred to generically, is dressed like a penguin, or has a cute smile.

Also, an artificial requirement of a letter from Canonical is a strawman. Canonical has made it perfectly clear as to how its "Ubuntu" name and logo may be used. Either or both may be used in a derivative distribution if said distribution only contains software available in the official Ubuntu repositories, hence Fluxbuntu is Fluxbuntu and Geubuntu is OpenGEU. Surprisingly, I seem to be quite a bit more informed about this than a recognized Linux resource, unless you were not counting on me actually caring about this. Mark Shuttleworth even addressed UbuntuSE (http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS2432715660.html). Nonetheless, knowing full well that such a letter would never materialize nor make a difference, you have reduced your argument to, "My ball, my rules." I am, however, left to rely on facts, logic, and reasoning, none of which are effective against the narrow-minded. Here is an interesting question, why are you so much more concerned about a distro's name, as a person who is just displaying it, than anyone whose work may have gone into it? Here is your answer, "Because it is me website." More correctly, your answer should be, "Because the GPL precludes them from placing conditions other than those specified by the GPL on the software." Other than "because it is your website", why is it that you get to do what the authors of gdm, kdm, and eternity can't do, yet you get to profit from their work, just the same?

And one more thing, being that I have actually visited the churchofsatan.com and have read some of their doctrines (namely, "9. Do not harm little children." http://churchofsatan.com/Pages/Eleven.html) I find Ubuntu Christian Edition to be offensive. I wish the Catholic Church took a definitive stance on things like that. I could suggest that you endorse child molestation, but that would reduce my argument to the same juvenile level as your suggestion of Penis Linux. When it comes to Satanic edition, what do you equate with it, other than social biases? What has a Satanist ever done to you, to warrant such hostility? Or perhaps through history, what have Satanists done? Considering the Church of Satan was establish in 1966, their history should be well documented on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Satan). In contrast, the Christians have the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades and the Muslims have Sept. 11, 2001 to their credits (no wikipedia links needed). This list of the 10 most evil people (http://listverse.com/history/top-10-most-evil-men/) has at least 4 Christians and 1 Muslim, yet no Satanists. Maybe UbuntuSE would have been listed if Satanists had a propensity to killing.

You have the Page-Hit-Ranking. Let the people decide for themselves, unless of course, you think that you know what is best for me and the numerous visitors of your site. You have already stated it; you don't want to deal with the responsibility of letting me and everyone else decide for themselves, so you are going to do what is best for you and calling it what is best for us. Why don't you just disregard the feelings of the Jews, Muslims, and Christians, like you did when you disregarded the feelings of Jews, Muslims, Satanists, and sexual assault victims when you listed UbuntuCE and the feelings of Jews, Christians, Satanists, and 9/11 families when you listed UbuntuME?

6r00k14n wrote:

George W. Bush was sworn in as president in January 2000. That doesn't mean he won the election.

You have made every mistake that a person who is wrong makes, especially after being proven wrong, you relied on logical fallacies:

1) It's true, except when it's not true (UbuntuSE is offensive, but Devil-Linux, its mascot, the VoltaLinux mascot, the BSD mascot and the FreeBSD logo are not).
2) Moving the goal posts (making the developers meet previously non-existent demands),
3) The Straw Man (an unnecessary letter from Canonical),
3) The Slippery Slope (accepting UbuntuSE would open the flood gates to Penis Linux), and finally
4) when all else failed, you relied on The Argument from authority (confusing recognition as an authority for infallibility).

Your stubbornness, ignorance, lack of faith in your site's visitors, and arrogance have finally made it clear to me that you really have no interest in achieving the goals of distrowatch, as you have portrayed them, but you seem to want to revel in the prestige and respect of being the distrowatch webmaster, without having to deal with any negative backlash, like the Elive incident, which you were also wrong about. Hindsight is 20/20, but that doesn't change the fact that you took it upon yourself to publicly post a link to a hidden folder that the Elive developer didn't even make public on his own, simply because you disagreed with his "donation" tactics, which is wrong. You had the option to notify him that you could not further promote his distribution, if he continued to use his "donation" tactics, but instead you chose your course of action then attempted to rise above your critics because you donate to open source projects. Being generous does not make you incapable of being wrong either. For the record, nobody will ever know or appreciate how many right decisions you make, but the wrong decisions always seem to make it into the light.

Now that I have shot down your "I'm an authority" argument (without calling you a hypocrite), this exchange is over!

True. Next time I'm bored I'll do just that..

@ICE-M

As I pointed out, Devil-Linux is already taken, using Tux with a pair of horns is taken by two distros (the aforementioned Devil Linux and VoltaLinux), and using a devil or a loose resemblance of one is also taken (FreeBSD), all of which are on Distrowatch.

As my exchange with him shows, Ladislav is only interested in having all of the glory, with none of the headache.

I also think that this bullshit gives him the impression that his dick grew another centimeter.

I do, however, think that the Linux Outlaws podcast (and any others than use distrowatch as a resource) should be made aware of this, but I will leave that to garry to decide.

It's ironic that Ladislav doesn't grace Distrowatch with Ubuntu Satanic Edition but yet allow Damned Small Linux:
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall

I wonder what he'd do if you'd repackage Satantic Edition and renamed it Damned Big Linux?

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=914760

The page hits on this site went up from 43,448 on Monday to 114,091 on Tuesday!

The torrent downloads for the 8.04 Satanic CD on Linuxtracker is now around 1,500:

http://linuxtracker.org/index.php?page=torrents&search=satanic&category=0&active=1

There are other trackers, but that's the main one.

I'ld like to give my opinion after reading some of the reaction on the forum :
I think Gary should make it more clear that Ubuntu Satanic Edition is not directly linked to LaVey's sect, and that he is not part of it, and explain that it is mainly a "heavy metal" theme for Ubuntu, since many people seems to get it wrong...

« I don't think garry (or anyone else) should have to explain anything about their distro beyond its basic specs. »
Yes. Indeed. But he *might* want not to be misunderstood, and taken for what he is not.

ehm... Amen ;-)

Garry, need not explain anything. The responsibility for understanding lies with the user/listener/viewer. If Satanism is your thing and you feel that using the SE version of Ubuntu brings you pleasure or helps you along your path then SE is for you. If your looking for a dark theme that allows you to express those thoughts feelings urges that otherwise would be stifled by a "lighter" desktop, then perhaps SE is for you. If your a 16 year old kid who's looking to piss off your more conservative parents or at the very least get a rise out of them (and Garry where were you when I was said 16 year old kid), then SE should do the trick (My mother would have hated this).

If the above doesn't interest you, perhaps your not into Satanism or you don't like Heavy Metal or you'd just like a more cheerful theme to your desktop, the one thing that this whole discussion has made perfectly clear is that there are an almost infinite number of alternatives for you to use.

Garry painted the picture. Make of it as you will. What Mona Lisa means to you may not be the same as what she means to me. I for one just got my VM at work to run SE on my wide screen monitor and I just gotta say ........ooooooohhhhhh prettttyyyy!

Hi guys,

Long time no posting here... I just wanted to focus on what Kinslayer just said: "Ubuntu SE is the reason I use Linux". I remember I read once a comment from Garry saying that this distro was his way of contributing something back to the free software community.... well, reading posts like the one of Kinslayer make me thing that Garry is doing a really good contribution to the community, and the guy from Distrowatch is too blind to see it, and that we should just ignore him.

Kudos to Garry
cheers
Tchorix
Ubuntu Satanic user since january 2007

We should start an alternative...

Distrowitch! ha ha

Ubuntu is a registered trademark of Canonical.<<<--- ubuntu is supposed to be a free OS and therefor can be edited and redistributed as we want...does it mean that we need a special permission to edit a release?...never heard such a tightsense before...Sir Garry our necrologic edition must appear on that distrothing :D...you have all my support...

Damn that guy is stubborn.

"I don’t consider the name “Satanic edition” as an appropriate name for a Linux distribution. Believe me, there are many very sensitive people visiting DistroWatch who would be offended by the name of your distro."

I mean: what the crap? He is lucky to be the webmaster thus he is just a jerk and doesnt really care about what people think or stop thinking about. He just tries to mantain his "I said no because I felt offended about your name and now I just dont want to give you the reason because that would make my manhood tremble." position.

Anyway, who cares about that distrothing.

When I first camed here I said to myself: "Finally found it."
And I wasn't looking for "satanic" at all. I was just looking for some dark themes.

And I seriously recommend your black themes to people who work untill late night. Because they are simply eyefriendly. End of story. No satan no offense. I think Satanic Edition users are so very different from what people think about the name.

Keep up the good artwork!

I red Lavey's Satanic Bible, and everything scary about the religion is just in the name.

The Satanists are just a bunch of people who want to be free, listen heavy metal music, play cosplay (wear funny dress) and watch science fiction movies.

I thought this story was about something else. LOL