A lot of debate today about “community” vs “corporate”-driven distributions. I (think I) understand the basic difference between the two, but what confuses me is when I read, for example:

…distro X is a community-driven distribution based on Ubuntu…

Now, from what I understand, Ubuntu is corporate-driven (Canonical). So in which sense is distro X above “community-driven”, if it’s based on Ubuntu? And more concretely: what would happen to distribution X if Canonical suddeny made Ubuntu closed-source? (Edit: from the nice explanations below, this example with Ubuntu is not fully realistic – but I hope you get my point.)

Possibly my question doesn’t make full sense because I don’t understand the whole topic. Apologies in that case – I’m here to learn. Cheers!

  • digdilemEnglish
    21·
    1 year ago

    Not quite but it’s not black and white. Rocky is owned by Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation, but that is owned by Greg Kurtzner because a legal entity needs to be owned by /someone/ in law.

    I personally trust him because I know a little of his story and his involvement with Centos before Rocky (ie, he cofounded it), but I appreciate that might not be enough for everyone. I’ve followed the project closely since its inception and am very happy with its progress and outlook so far, solely from a non-commercial aspect.

    And Alma is NOT better. That’s like saying Cheese is better than Apples, or Titanium’s better than Lead. They’re different distros with quite different approaches. It’s fantastic both of them entered this market and both of them are doing well, choice is the absolute best thing about Foss.

    (More detail about Rocky’s legal makeup here, if you’re interested) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Linux - I also have no commercial interest in it other than a user)