Q: what is the ultimate edition license ?

[Persio]

Hi there !

I have been loving Ultimate Edition. I have tried Ultimate Edition 2.6, Ultimate Edition 2.7 and Ultimate Edition Gaming Edition.
This has convinced me that the right way to go for next generation pc/internet user is to get them to start using Linux as dual boot next to that other operating system they all use. (ofcourse best would be if they all abandoned that other OS, but for now getting them to dual boot with Linux seems like a smart move)
And Ultimate Edition seems like the best candidate to convince them to do so.

Now I like share this great program with some friends of mine who live in other countries.
I like them to also start using Ultimate Edition.

My question is:

Am I allowed to distribute Ultimate Edition freely ? (ofcourse NOT for money just to share and promote it)
Are there specific conditions I should meet ?
Maybe also some other tips you have for me ?

I looked as much as I could see on this forum but didn't find any thread devoted to the subject of license.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

[Admin-Amir]

Hello Persio & welcome to the U.E Forum.

Here is the Answer for you - hope that will solve the issue for you.

Ultimate Edition is an operating system based on Ubuntu, which is itself based on Debian. Ultimate Edition has all the goodies pre-added you have came to love from Ubuntu. Ultimate Edition has been tweaked to have better wireless hardware support out-of-the-box. The creator aims for a better user experience and improved usability.
Ultimate Edition is based on Ubuntu but should not be confused with or be considered Ubuntu. The major difference between the two is that Ultimate Edition has its own repository that contains restricted multimedia drivers as well as packages that require license acceptance to install. This goes against the Ubuntu philosophy (free as in speech). Ultimate Edition cannot install restricted multimedia codecs by default due to US laws, but makes installing these codecs and applications easy post-installation additions with use of the upgrade icon, or with Ultamatix, without the need to add new repositories. The Ultimate repositories also contain newer package updates than those provided by the official Ubuntu repositories.
Ultimate Edition started off as Ubuntu Christmas Edition and was made as a Christmas present for the Ubuntu community. Due to the popularity of Christmas edition, the creator TheeMahn created Ultimate 1.1. Ultimate Edition has software pre-installed and ready for use even in the live CD/DVD environment than Ubuntu. Ultimate 1.2 was released shortly after 1.1 with new software. To answer the call of gamers, TheeMahn then built Ultimate Gamers Edition. The Gamers Edition came with a large variety of games for Linux. On October 18, 2007, TheeMahn received an e-mail from Canonical asking that the use of the Ubuntu logo and name stop. The reason was that Ultimate had become too different from Ubuntu and that continued use of the name and logo may damage the Ubuntu Project. Ultimate then became Ultimate Edition.

[Persio]

Hi Admin-Amir,

Thanks for your reply and for your welcoming words.
It gives me some more info that is very useful, but it doesn't answer the question whether I am allowed to (re-)distribute Ultimate Edition without restrictions.
I like to share Ultimate Edition with my friends in other countries easily through the use of binaries newsgroup.
One friend of mine who uses Ubuntu himself says any Linux distro would always be allowed to do this with.
But Ultimate Edition is not your average distro I think, specially when I read it's history.
If you can't give me more specific details maybe you can direct me to whoever can ?
I like to be able to give credit to whom credit should be given to

Cheers

[billhedrick]

well, Ultimate Edition -as distributed- doesn't require a license, everything that comes with it in unrestricted, there are simple mechanisms that make it easy to add the restricted materials included.

[Persio]

Thanks, Billhedrick and Blackwolf, for your replies.
To me it is important to know these details because currently in my country powerful foundations who are funded by the big industries are sewing about every person who shares anything with anyone.
I think this world would be much better off if everyone just dropped "that other os" and moved to Linux.

By the way: Do you know if there will be a new version of Ultimate Edition Gaming edition any time soon ?
I installed that for my nephew, he's 13 years old but very keen on getting in on new and not-so-very-main-stream things. I made it a dual boot with "that other os version 7" so he can experience for himself and decide what he likes most. So far I noticed he is using Ultimate Edition alot and he's very happy with it's performance. In many online browser games he says Ultimate Edition is often faster !

So, thanks alot for making Ultimate Edition, TheeMahn & the Ultimate Edition team of Testers !!! (and Bnjamin Breeg ofcourse too!)