Hello Linux Geeksters. As you may know, the Linux Mint developers (and other developers that create Ubuntu based systems), have been asked by Canonical to sign a license agreement, to be allowed to use the binary packages from the official Ubuntu repositories.
After some time, the Canonical developers announced that Canonical and the Ubuntu community are supporting the Linux Mint project, and such an initiative is just to ensure this support.
“We believe there is no ill-will against Linux Mint, from either the Ubuntu community or Canonical and that Canonical does not intend to prevent them from continuing their work, and that this license is to help ensure that. What Linux Mint does is appreciated, and we want to see them succeed.” said Canonical.
But not everybody is happy with this decision of Canonical. Recently after this, Jonathan Riddell from KDE has announced that everybody that wants to create a Kubuntu derivative system can do that without the need of signing any license agreement, while the Kubuntu trademarks are hidden or removed:
Let me say clearly, no licence is needed to make a derivative distribution of Kubuntu. All you need to do is remove obvious uses of the Kubuntu trademark.