I should really stop running Ubuntu for the good of my health. This morning, my various Ubuntu systems announced that a whole bunch of packages would be unavailable unless I registered for Ubuntu Pro — https://ubuntu.com/pro

Ubuntu Pro is free-of-charge for "personal" users for up to five machines. Otherwise, pay up. I didn't see rates listed: you have to contact Canonical to find out. Whenever I see that, I expect an Oracle-style shakedown in the absence of transparency.

The following packages seem to be under 'esmapps', only available through Ubuntu Pro:

    ansible imagemagick imagemagick-6-common imagemagick-6.q16
    libimage-magick-perl libimage-magick-q16-perl libjs-jquery-ui
    libmagick++-6-headers libmagick++-6.q16-8 libmagick++-6.q16-dev
    libmagickcore-6-headers libmagickcore-6.q16-6 libmagick++-dev
    libmagickwand-6-headers libmagickwand-6.q16-6 libmaven3-core-java
    libopenexr25 libopenexr-dev libpython2.7-dbg libpython2.7-minimal
    libpython2.7-stdlib python2.7 python2.7-dbg python2.7-minimal

Ubuntu Pro also seems to require snapd, my least favourite Canonical 'innovation'. On the system I have it blocked completely it tried and failed to install, hopefully with no hilarious side-effects.

Anyone else experiencing this? I suppose I should've seen it coming with all the little messages that Ubuntu had been peppering into my apt chatter every day.

Yours in absurdity,

 Stewart