Coding for Jesus?
A few months ago, there was a thread on the ubuntu-sounder list about Christian Ubuntu, and how some people felt that the idea of a Christian Ubuntu is offensive. Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having Christian Edition. If there’s derivatives for schools, gamers, and just about anything else, what’s wrong with having a system that makes it easier for another group to do their work. Having said that, I do agree that the ‘what would Jesus download’ URL might be pushing it a bit.
But then there’s the Ubuntu Christian Edition “Facts” page. While I agree that it’s funny, it certainly seems to push things a bit too far. I think that many Christians might interpret it as Ubuntu making fun of Christians, so I think that page might be a bit anti-CoC and against the Ubuntu trademark policy as well. I realise that the people who make these pages mean no harm, but I think people need to put a little thought into how people would perceive them, because it’s more than their own reputation they are playing with.
On a slightly unrelated note… just for the record… it isn’t me in this picture:
http://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/archive/hacking-for-christ
I’ve already had two isolated incidents where people on IRC asked me today whether that was either me, or a younger brother. What a crazy world 
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I’d understand if they called it “Christbuntu” or something like that. But the moniker “Ubuntu Christian Edition” makes it sound like the developers of this project think the official version of Ubuntu is “un-Christian”.
Gabriel Hurley - September 11th, 2006 at 3:14 am
Even though the whatwouldjesusdownload.com URI is obviously somewhat tongue-in-cheek, if we take a more serious look at it I can’t really fault it. I don’t think it’s pushing to suggest that Jesus would download Linux, and specifically Ubuntu—because the Bantu word “ubuntu” actually has a very close parallel in the Greek word “agape”, which in the English New Testament is translated “love”. Ubuntu encompasses the same ideas of relational self-identification and the betterment of the person through his betterment of the community as is commended and eulogized in Scripture (eg, “faith, hope, and agape abide—but the greatest of these is agape”).
Ubuntu seems to be a slightly more general concept than agape is; agape receives much of its connotation implicitly through the honor-shame paradigm of Biblical culture, whereas the similar connotations of ubuntu appear to be explicit to its definition. Nonetheless, strong parallels exist (:
Bnonn Tennant - September 11th, 2006 at 5:37 am
It shocks me to read “ubuntu christian edition”
as if “ubuntu” and so Canonical was endorsed by some religious people.
come on, I now ORDER you to create Ubuntu AGNOSTIC Edition.
—
Why people do you want to put religion in everything and associate with every name ?
You can only create division here. I’m not christian and I think offending to attach christian religion to “ubuntu” name and reputation.
michel - September 12th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
I don’t think it should be considered offensive (or it would be by an impartial jury) to name an Ubuntu version Christian (or even to blog about its presumptive facts). And it is not a question of agreement, it is mainly a question on free speech, I mean, if people understand religion and computing in a different way, they can freely express their opinions and they should be able to build different versions of Ubuntu.
No doubt, thanks to what it could be an abusive use of trademark protection this initiative based on a different understanding of things could be banned.
(Disclosure
: I’m no related in any way to the Christian Ubuntu Project and the GNU/Linux distribution is not Ubuntu. My only concern here is free speech and the possible missuse of trademark law to forbid free speech.)
Pablo RodrÃguez - September 13th, 2006 at 1:34 am