Ubuntu names can be tricky.
I’ve heard it proposed that the various official flavors of Ubuntu be retitled from their current names of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Edubuntu to the possible new names Ubuntu Gnome, Ubuntu KDE, Ubuntu Xfce, and Ubuntu Education Edition, respectively (or some variations thereof). As it stands now, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Edubuntu might sound cool, but their names can confuse new users, who sometimes assume the four are separate Linux distros instead of the same Linux distro with four different sets of default packages and artwork.
Then you have projects like Linux Mint and Mepis, which use Ubuntu as a base but don’t acknowledge that association through the distro name itself. There’s not that much confusion in these cases, but some could argue that it might make sense to have some kind of Ubuntu reference to “give credit where credit is due,” even though Ubuntu’s own name doesn’t reference Debian directly.
The most problematic names seem to be the religious editions—so far they are Ubuntu Christian Edition, Ubuntu Muslim Edition, and Ubuntu Satanic Edition, with the possible addition of a Jewish version soon. The names spark controversy because their use of the words Ubuntu and Edition makes it easy for users to assume that there is some kind of official Ubuntu or Canonical endorsement of these religious offshoots. I am actually a little troubled that Ubuntu gave permission to Jereme (whose Ubuntu Forums handle is mhancoc7) to use the name Ubuntu Christian Edition. An official endorsement blurs the line between “church” and “state” in the Ubuntu world, and that makes a lot of Ubuntu users (particularly non-religious ones, but even some religious ones too) nervous. On the other hand, though, if Ubuntu Christian Edition were to be called Disciple Linux or Agape Linux, people would be under the false impression that the release was an entirely new distro and not just a remastered Ubuntu with different artwork and different default programs (the same confusion people currently have about Xubuntu and Kubuntu, which both even have the letters buntu in them), and that, for some reason, also makes some people upset—those who don’t think a remaster of the .ISO “warrants” the “release” of a new “distro.”
I’m not one of those naysayers who think the religious editions should stop. You can’t stop forking, modification, and/or re-release in open source—that would kind of defeat the purpose. You want to stop things, make those things proprietary, not open source. But if people are going to be confused by the name of a release, I’d prefer they think a religious “distro” is its own thing rather than thinking that Ubuntu is starting to officially endorse certain religions.
