But Canonical is acceptable for doing the exact same thing?
Yes, They create and operate Snap. While it is not ideal I get it.
I think distros like Zorin/Mint etc. Should stay neutral and allow this to all play out.
So... Canonical, which has a financial conflict with the products is permitted to exclude a product...
But a neutral party that has no conflict of interest is not permitted to exclude a product that they disagree with?
I truly do not understand the logic.
It is not fair to expect someone with an absolute direct interest in a matter to endorse a competing product they have 0 control of.
It is fair to ask neutral parties to not choose sides in the matter.
I am not "Demonizing" them for their decision not to include it but I think it is harmful to users caught in the middle.
You can look at my opinion as "wrong" but that is how I see it. I care about the end user most of all but at the same time I can not expect them to push a competing product. Mint/Zorin/etc have very little direct interest in the matter.
So, grocery stores that offer a house brand, in order to promote their brand, should fairly be able to block and refuse to sell Kraft, Reynolds, and so on?
They absolutely do this.
If a competing product that doesnât have a huge user base is hurting their house brand they get rid of it.
I do not agree with your answer.
No, grocery stores absolutely do not block or refuse to sell Kraft or Reynolds or other brands in order to sell only their own house brand.
You then shifted the goal posts to some means of supporting your answer in order to suggest that a competing product doesn't have a "huge" user base or is "hurting their brand."
This does not fit - aside from being a complete misdirection.
And you would have to also demonstrate that Flatpak has a tiny amount of support compared to Snap and that it hurts Snap. But you do not need to - because it is Irrelevant.
If Ford doesn't want to sell Toyota vehicles at a certified dealership, they won't. And they generally don't very much. They can do this because they are providing Sale of One General Product. Their vehicles.
However, a Vehicle Rental Service like "Enterprise" cannot block Ford or Chevy or Hyundai... Because they are not Providing Sale or One General Product.
They are providing a Service.
Grocery Stores are not providing the sale of one general product.
They are providing a Service.
And this applies to Canonical, as well. Canonical is not providing One General Product. They are providing an Operating System, true... and I can see how that may confuse. But that is a Service: It is intended to provide a Free Open Source Operating System to serve Users Needs In Computing.
Snap, is a side product of Canonical, not its One General Product. It augments the service that the desktop provides.
Snap is Not FOSS. It is partly Proprietary.
And to top it off - Canonical is Community Driven and supported. Which makes the hit that much more severe.
Mint is independent of Snap and Independent of Flatpack. It is Independent of Gnome.
They have no conflict of interest in any of the above. So, they can choose to not include Snap by default.
But Canonical is not independent. Snap is their product. And they are financially biased, while providing a Service, not a product. They, with a conflict of interest, then undercut another app solely for the interest of self gain, using a Non-FOSS application on a Community supported service.
It doesn't really get more wrong than that.
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My grocery store stopped selling two products I bought just recently because they formed their own brand of these products. Kraft is to powerful of a brand to do this to but many brands are gotten rid of all the time. This is a simple fact
This is not the goal of Canonical really. Their goal is to get into businesses through users and offer support for their products for a fee. This is not a community project they have an obligation to the business. (Without them Zorin would not exist or at the very least it would exist as worse off than it is)
And? They are a BUSINESS. It is their job to promote their own products
Zorin does the exact same thing charging for a Pro version. That is what keeps this project alive and as good as it is.
Community projects on the other hand are only concerned about their users and that is fine. If most of their users do not want Snaps then so be it. But I personally disagree with that stance.
Are you really claiming that it is a Simple Fact that Grocery stores routinely sell only house brand prodcuts?
I mean... really... all any reader of this thread needs to do is go to the store to see this is not a simple fact, at all.
They will, instead, see shelves lined with many many products. Not just that stores House Brand.
The rough translation of "Ubuntu" is "Humanity To Others." The Logo is the Community Logo.
They violate their own stated values.
Freedom
Ubuntu celebrates freedom. Freedom to choose, to change, to participate.
Proprietary Snap.
Collaborative
Working together is at the heart of Ubuntu. It is the essence of âhumanity towards othersâ.
A Community Project:
You have shifted the goal posts, again.
Promoting their own product does not require denying other products or refusing them. That, is monopolizing, not promoting.
Yes they do. I find it astounding you have never ran into it. I would say it happens to me at least once a year.
Walmart is especially bad about it
Canonicals job first and foremost is to protect their business and they have got to make decisions based on that. I have agreed that they have been heavy handed at times can you not agree that without Canonical's business that many community projects would not exist?
I find it ironic that you are using Zorin with this stance it is another "For profit" distro
Apologies for butting in but I would like to point out that not all community projects rely on Canonical or Ubuntu.
This is true, but all of the Ubuntu based ones do. They chose Ubuntu as the base because it is the "best" in their eyes. So these community distros would either not exist or be worse off. (In their eyes anyway. They chose Ubuntu for a reason)
Also feel free to "butt in" lol. All opinions should be welcome
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I think "stability and support" would be a more appropriate justification for choosing Ubuntu as a base.
Which is paid for by Canonical's business and a large reason as to why community projects like it. They can focus on their thing and let Canonical do the brunt of the heavy lifting
Hmmm....
Mint for instance is basically Ubuntu with a custom desktop, custom apps, and snaps removed
The Mint team relies on Ubuntu for most of the effort to make the system work and they put their vision on top of it.
Fedora is kinda similar with Red Hat developers putting in a lot of the work for Fedora as well even though Fedora is a "Community" distro.
Cinnamon is the main DE for Mint rather than GNOME, which Ubuntu uses.
Anyway, I'm off for the night.
I can go into any WalMart with a camera and easily demonstrate that the shelves are stocked with Name Brand products.
Flatpak is no threat to Canonical nor to Ubuntu. I repeat:
I see no Irony.
I fully support the concept that Distros should be pay-for, actually. In fact, some time back, I was the O.P. of a thread discussing it.
But Zorin OS also is not rejecting Snap, with a conflict of Interest in flatpak, is it?
They would use Debian as a base, actually. Ubuntu is based on Debian.
I do agree that Canonical has contributed a great deal to the Linux Community as a whole. So has The Mint Team.
So has Suse and Arch.
And I can show you countless products they do not carry....... Do you know why? They will make less money. I would really give this part up. Stores absolutely 100% do this. Any other ascertion is wrong. I have had this happen to me twice in the past year. True Lemon is one and State Fair Corn Dogs is the other. Once the Walmart brand of these products came into existence True Lemon's section was cut down by 75% and State Fair Corn Dogs are just entirely gone.
Flatpak is in DIRECT competition with Snap. These are competing formats and more than likely only one will exist years from now.
Because it does not make business since for Zorin to not have Snaps. They have nothing to lose either way
While it is true that Ubuntu is based on Debian it is very different than how Mint is based on Ubuntu. Debian and Ubuntu are not 1:1 like Ubuntu and Mint.
Ubuntu is the base of Mint because it saves a ton of work for the Mint team. Debian Stable is not really a "User" OS and Debain Testing is not supported very well.
Ok... I think I am starting to understand the disconnect where we are misunderstanding eachother.
Your claim (Correct me if I am wrong) is that On Occasion Large chain stores may drop a product if it is underperforming. Is that correct?
My claim was that Grocery Chains do not eliminate competing products and provide only their house band. You do not walk in and see Only House Brand Cheese, no others. House Brand bread and no others.
It is true (I would agree with you) that if a brand sells much better than others, they will reduce on buying the low performing brands and buy more of the well performing brands.
But that is just Gross Product Adjustment. Usually based on sales vs supply, not based on Housebrands. Housebrands provide too little of a profit margin for a store to try to replace a name brand with.
(Besides, in many places it is actually illegal.)
My contention is that Flatpak is performing well and Ubuntu / Canonical limited its availability solely for the reason of securing its own conflict of interest. Ubuntu does not buy Snap and Flatpaks and then try to sell them to consumers.
Flatpak is not underperforming.
Snap is not endangered.
I would agree with this. I cannot predict what will exist in the upcoming years. Perhaps all the above will be replaced with an actual improved system.
Exactly.
Zorin and Mint are both Independent.
I completely disagree with you here... But this is a whole 'nother can of worms and I can only handle one debate in a thread at a time. 
I could point out some serious flaws in Canonicals package management and untidy repositories... which has also been covered at great length on this forum.