Are software issues about Ubuntu Gnome Remix on-topic or off-topic?

Question

I'm seeking a community consensus on this question.

Ubuntu Gnome Remix is not an official Canonical sanctioned Ubuntu variant - community maintained.

• https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGNOME/

However in recent months - this has been given major prominence - the projects aim is to seek official recognition.

• https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGNOME/ReleaseNotes/12.10
• http://jeremy.bicha.net/2012/10/06/ubuntu-online-accounts-and-gnome/

To my mind, this distro is in a similar to where Lubuntu was a few year back until it was recently granted official - but community maintained status.

Thus - is there sufficiant interest here on Ask Ubuntu, to view questions about UGR as on-topic or off-topic?

Answer 1

No, it should not. We've drawn a line in the sand and we'll have to stick to it. Once it becomes officially recognized, if it does, then we can allow future questions from that point on as on-topic but previously asked questions should remain closed as it'll be impossible to tell what has changed in that given time between "officially" recognized and now.

Answer 2

Playing the devil's advocate here. I might not necessarily subscribe to what I just said here.

Ubuntu GNOME remix should be considered on-topic.

They are no more off-topic than Cinnamon desktop environment.

If I may add, Linux Mint is off-topic but Cinnamon DE installed via a PPA is on-topic primarily because software running on Ubuntu is considered on-topic.

Just like that, Ubuntu GNOME remix is just software running on Ubuntu. All that happened was the ISO got remastered and gnome-shell was made the default desktop environment instead of Unity. They are still essentially software on Ubuntu.

Ubuntu GNOME remix is NOT a different distribution altogether to be off-topic. While it is not yet considered an official flavour, what difference is there between someone installing the remix and someone installing gnome-shell on top of Vanilla Ubuntu?

Answer 3

My comments only represent myself and not representing anyone else.

Ubuntu GNOME Remix should be considered on-topic.

Reasons:

1. Ubuntu GNOME Remix is made up of packages that exists in main, restricted, universe or multiverse repos. It's meta, default-settings and such appear on universe repos. The lead developer, Jeremy Bicha, is a Ubuntu Desktop developer and a big guy in the Documentation Team and has made quite a good distro.

2. Ubuntu GNOME Remix is certainly trying to get Ubuntu Technical Board's approval to become an official distro. Before the approval I think it is good to let people ask about the distro here, so that we can certainly see how the distro is working, and will not suddenly cause too many questions flooding in when the distro is approved.

3. In my view it is that if the distros have their own repos and such, they should not be allowed here. However a distro made up of completely packages from the four "big" Ubuntu repos are certainly acceptable. Here comes my question though: Should distros made up of Personal Package Archives in Launchpad be discussed here? I think not so.

So final conclusion:

If a distro is made up of only main, restricted, universe and multiverse contents, they should be allowed to be discussed in here, since they were a part of Ubuntu. Henceforth UGR should be allowed here too.