"Bring up the topic of Ubuntu and you'll receive a mixed response from unexpected corners. No, it's not the Windows brigade, but the Debian crowd. So just how does Ubuntu differ from Debian to inflame such passion?
"First things first: Ubuntu is a derivative work from Debian. It's a Linux distro based on a pre-existing Linux distro. Let's be clear they're not like apples and oranges.
"On the one hand, that sounds bizarre. On the other, it’s a perfect example of the GNU Public License at work: anyone is free to take open source software and rework it and redistribute it for the overall benefit of the community, if they believe they can make it better.
"It so happens Mark Shuttleworth's Canonical organisation believe they can make something better, in this case Debian Linux.
"And here's where the issue comes in: whenever a Linux advocate like myself writes about Ubuntu and how it is possibly the most popular version of Linux presently available, feedback will inevitably flow in from someone asserting that Ubuntu is just a cheap and tawdry Debian wanna-be."
