Slashdot Mirror
Why Do You Need License From Canonical To Create Derivatives?
sfcrazy writes "Canonical's requirement of a license for those creating Ubuntu derivatives is back in the news. Yesterday the Community Council published a statement about Canonical's licensing policies, but it's vague and it provides no resolution to the issue. It tells creators of derivative distros to avoid the press and instead talk to the Community Council (when they're not quick about responding). Now Jonathan Riddell of Kubuntu has come forth to say no one needs any license to create any derivative distro. So, the question remains: If Red Hat doesn't force a license on Oracle or CentOS, why does Canonical insist upon one?"
... they need the free press space.
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
.. thinks FLOSS developers provide free labour to the advancement of its IP.
You don't need a license for the open-source portions of Ubuntu (which is almost everything). In fact, Canonical would probably be in violation of their license if they tried to impose this requirement on the Linux kernel or any GPL-licensed packages (they could impose it on BSD-licensed packages, and I'd have to research other licenses). What you'd need a license for is the Ubuntu logos and name and the like and the software Canonical wrote that isn't under an open-source license. It's the same as with RedHat, you need the license to use their logos and trademarks or you can use Fedora which doesn't have the licensed stuff in it. It's probably non-trivial to strip the trademarked and proprietary stuff out of the actual Ubuntu distribution, it'd probably be easier to go straight back to the Debian base distribution and work from there.
Stallman insists on the term GNU/Linux.
It should perhaps be noted that Red Hat and others including Apache do in fact have a similar policy. The strongest legally and I think most important part of Canonical's policy is as follows:
Any redistribution of MODIFIED versions of Ubuntu must be approved, certified or provided by Canonical IF you are going to associate it with the [Canonical] Trademarks. Otherwise you must remove and replace the Trademarks
(Emphasis mine). That's common sense - you can't call your version "Ubuntu", and Red Hat does the same. Centos is essentially RHEL with the Red Hat trademarks removed.
What may be different is that Canonical claims their specific arrangement of packages may be subject to copy rights. That is to say, each individual package is distributable under GPL, but they suggest that copying Unbuntu's own selection of groupings for desktop, server, etc., and the exact method of integration may be subject to Canonical's consent via their stated policy. That's an interesting position. They may or may not be correct that they have the legal right to claim some aspects of distribution as their own, apart from the packages used in the composition. It may also be a dickish move to assert that right in absence of a trademark issue.
CentOS maintains their own binary repositories where packages are built from publicly available RedHat source files , whereas Mint pulls binaries directly from Ubuntu's repositories which includes Canonical trademarks. Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and other *buntu's are trademarks of Canonical, so there's no necessity for licensing.
Oh, you don't mean this derivative. Of course you can make derivatives, and all profits you make are yours. And all the losses will be paid out by the tax payers. wait, you aren't talking about that derivative either.
You can create derivative works, but the dolts from RIAA and MPAA take a dim view and claim copyright infringement on anything and everything, like for example looking at the Atlantic Ocean without proper license. Not the derivative either?
Man, if your derivative something obscure like building git specific distribution or ubuntu running under mono under cygwin X server or something, go ahead and derive it. No one will notice.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
They can CLAIM anything. They can claim their shit doesn't stink. That doesn't make it so. GPL is GPL.
The OP was not talking about trademark, but about copyright on the selection of packages in an argument analagous-ish to one that a mashup can be copyrighted separately from the underlying songs. It's odd and untested but not on it's face definitely wrong under current law, dickishness notwithstanding
besides any brilliant developers would be better off just making a fresh clean derivative from one of the great grand daddy distros like Debian or Slackware and forget making a derivative from a spoiled rotten undisciplined bastardized child like ubuntu,
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Mark is a good guy.
No. Anyone who would choose Unity as a user interface and distribute it to an unsuspecting world is NOT a good guy.
Cuz Canonical is a BITCH. That's right, BITCH.
This post brought to you by Jesse Pinkman and the letter BITCH.
Too bad he sucks great humongous dick at hiring fucking idiots.
Sounds like he doesn't suck at it at all.
TFS> If Red Hat doesn't force a license on Oracle or CentOS, why does Canonical insist upon one?"
Actually the same happens to Red Hat; I recall CentOS refers to them indirectly as "an important Linux vendor", because it's prevented from using Red Hat branding.
Canonical is even being nicer and saying "we allow you to use the Ubuntu brand, but you have to ask and sign up a licence". Or, do what CentOS does and don't use our repos. If it's from source, I bet there would be no problem, but using pre-compiled binaries full of Ubuntu references might make someone demand Canonical take responsibility to e.g. support distros it does not own.
For Debian, things are somewhat different, because the GPL applies simply and there's no warranty whatsoever. Canonical and Red Hat though go a lot further regarding support, as I understand, and cannot allow any tarnishing of their reputation.
Remember, the GPL stablishes one must give source with the provided binaries; nobody is forced to give the binaries. Canonical is actually paying the bandwidth costs to help derived distros; and instead of just vetoing freeloaders, it just ask people to license its Ubuntu brand, probably just because they're so required by law (which mandates anyone to protect its trademarks or risk losing them).
http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu/licensing
Licensing
Ubuntu is a collection of thousands of computer programs and documents created by a range of individuals, teams and companies.
Each of these programs may come under a different licence. This licence policy describes the process that we follow in determining which software will be included by default in the Ubuntu operating system.
Copyright licensing and trademarks are two different areas of law, and we consider them separately in Ubuntu. The following policy applies only to copyright licences. We evaluate trademarks on a case-by-case basis.
Categories of software in Ubuntu
The thousands of software packages available for Ubuntu are organised into four key groups or components: main, restricted, universe and multiverse. Software is published in one of these components based on whether or not it meets our free software philosophy, and the level of support we can provide for it.
This policy only addresses the software that you will find in main and restricted, which contain software that is fully supported by the Ubuntu team and must comply with this policy.
Ubuntu 'main' component licence policy
All application software included in the Ubuntu main component:
Must include source code. The main component has a strict and non-negotiable requirement that application software included in it must come with full source code.
Must allow modification and distribution of modified copies under the same licence. Just having the source code does not convey the same freedom as having the right to change it. Without the ability to modify software, the Ubuntu community cannot support software, fix bugs, translate it, or improve it.
Ubuntu 'main' and 'restricted' component licence policy
All application software in both main and restricted must meet the following requirements:
Must allow redistribution. Your right to sell or give away the software alone, or as part of an aggregate software distribution, is important because:
You, the user, must be able to pass on any software you have received from Ubuntu in either source code or compiled form.
While Ubuntu will not charge licence fees for this distribution, you might want to charge to print Ubuntu CDs, or create your own customised versions of Ubuntu which you sell, and should have the freedom to do so.
Must not require royalty payments or any other fee for redistribution or modification.It's important that you can exercise your rights to this software without having to pay for the privilege, and that you can pass these rights on to other people on exactly the same basis.
Must allow these rights to be passed on along with the software. You should be able to have exactly the same rights to the software as we do.
Must not discriminate against persons, groups or against fields of endeavour. The licence of software included in Ubuntu can not discriminate against anyone or any group of users and cannot restrict users from using the software for a particular field of endeavour - a business for example. So we will not distribute software that is licensed "freely for non-commercial use".
Must not be distributed under a licence specific to Ubuntu. The rights attached to the software must not depend on the program being part of Ubuntu system. So we will not distribute software for which Ubuntu has a "special" exemption or right, and we will not put our own software into Ubuntu and then refuse you the right to pass it on.
Must not contaminate other software licences.The licence must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with it. For example, the licence must not insist that all othe
http://www.canonical.com/intellectual-property-rights-policy
Intellectual property rights policy
What’s new? On 14th May 2013 we updated our trademark policy and renamed it the “intellectual property rights policy”.
Why? We want to ensure that anyone using Canonical’s intellectual property does so in compliance with Canonical’s rights. As such, we have redrafted the existing policy to more clearly identify what intellectual property rights Canonical has and to clarify and simplify the language. In particular, we have clarified Canonical’s position with respect to the redistribution of Ubuntu.
What’s changed? Essentially nothing. We’re just making things clearer.
Please read the updated intellectual property rights policy to find out more.
Welcome to Canonical’s IPRights Policy. This policy is published by Canonical Limited (Canonical, we, us and our) under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA version 3.0 UK licence.
Canonical owns and manages certain intellectual property rights in Ubuntu and other associated intellectual property (Canonical IP) and licenses the use of these rights to enterprises, individuals and members of the Ubuntu community in accordance with this IPRights Policy.
Your use of Canonical IP is subject to:
Your acceptance of this IPRights Policy;
Your acknowledgement that Canonical IP is the exclusive property of Canonical and can only be used with Canonical’s permission (which can be revoked at any time); and
You taking all reasonable steps to ensure that Canonical IP is used in a manner that does not affect either the validity of such Canonical IP or Canonical’s ownership of Canonical IP in any way; and that you will transfer any goodwill you derive from them to Canonical, if requested.
Ubuntu is a trusted open source platform. To maintain that trust we need to manage the use of Ubuntu and the components within it very carefully. This way, when people use Ubuntu, or anything bearing the Ubuntu brand, they can be assured that it will meet the standards they expect. Your continued use of Canonical IP implies your acceptance and acknowledgement of this IPRights Policy.
1. Summary
You can download, install and receive updates to Ubuntu for free.
You can modify Ubuntu for personal or internal commercial use.
You can redistribute Ubuntu, but only where there has been no modification to it.
You can use our copyright, patent and design materials in accordance with this IPRights Policy.
You can be confident and can trust in the consistency of the Ubuntu experience.
You can rely on the standard expected of Ubuntu.
2. Your use of Ubuntu
You can download, install and receive updates to Ubuntu for free.
Ubuntu is freely available to all users for personal, or in the case of organisations, internal use. It is provided for this use without warranty. All implied warranties are disclaimed to the fullest extent permitted at law.
You can modify Ubuntu for personal or internal use.
You can make changes to Ubuntu for your own personal use or for your organisation’s own internal use.
You can redistribute Ubuntu, but only where there has been no modification to it.
You can redistribute Ubuntu in its unmodified form, complete with the installer images and packages provided by Canonical (this includes the publication or launch of virtual machine images).
Any redistribution of modified versions of Ubuntu must be approved, certified or provided by Canonical if you are going to associate i
For some reason, there's a concerted campaign happening to try to convince people that successul Open Source projects are not really open. It's an odd thing to pretend, and I'm wondering what their motive is?
Have you seen the near-identical accusations around Android being pushed to the front page here?
"One of Android's biggest draws is its roots in open source. While Android is technically very open, from a practical standpoint it's much more difficult for device makers to distance themselves from Google"
It's a very odd stance to take, so the question you have to ask yourself is: "Who benefits from this Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt?". Where does the money trail lead?
The strongest case Ubuntu has in my opinion is to state that the Ubuntu repositories in their binary form are only available to Carnonical authorized distibutions. The servers are theirs and they can dictate any terms of service they wish. Carnonical/Ubuntu still has to provide source per the GPL but not free binaries and bandwidth.
Side note: Slashdot is half following my system theme... the text is white but the background is white not grey, the end result being I cannot see what I type. Please forgive any typos :)
Rather than listen to stuff that has no basis in reality like this:
Any suggestion there is compilation copyright is irrelevant in most countries and untrue for derivatives almost by definition.
You should consider the following:
1) It's not irrelevant in the United States. Or Canada. Or Australia. Or the UK. Or India. Shall I go on?
2) If it's a derivative work, BY DEFINITION it infringes.
Yes, you can absolutely select your packages independently to make your own distro. What you can't do is use SOMEONE ELSE'S selection, modify it slightly, and say "tahdah!" The whole principle behind compilation copyright is that it takes some creativity to select among possibilities, and the expression of that creativity (the compilation) is subject to copyright.
The parent has this right. Imagine I compile 1800's newspaper articles about trains into a small book. My choice of the articles is protected by copyright- after all, there are way too many to simply reprint, so the ones I choose show some generic creativity. This doesn't stop you from reprinting the very same articles in your collection, unless of course all you did was grab my book and add or subtract a couple of articles. Your own choice is protected by your own copyright, assuming you actually made your own choices instead of stole mine.
There's some GPL non-sequiturs above, too. The only way you can assign a copyright before it has been created is if it's a work made for hire, so there's no magic bullet that keeps package choices out of this regime.
It's pretty obvious that Kubuntu is derivative of Ubuntu and Canonical is within its rights to maintain the strength of their trademark. If the Kubuntu folks wanted to be truly libre then they should have been smart enough to come up with an original name.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
For some reason, there's a concerted campaign happening to try to convince people that successul Open Source projects are not really open. It's an odd thing to pretend, and I'm wondering what their motive is?
Have you seen the near-identical accusations around Android being pushed to the front page here?
"One of Android's biggest draws is its roots in open source. While Android is technically very open, from a practical standpoint it's much more difficult for device makers to distance themselves from Google"
It's a very odd stance to take, so the question you have to ask yourself is: "Who benefits from this Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt?". Where does the money trail lead?
For some reason, there's a concerted campaign happening to try to convince people that successul Open Source projects are not really open. It's an odd thing to pretend, and I'm wondering what their motive is?
Have you seen the near-identical accusations around Android being pushed to the front page here?
"One of Android's biggest draws is its roots in open source. While Android is technically very open, from a practical standpoint it's much more difficult for device makers to distance themselves from Google"
It's a very odd stance to take, so the question you have to ask yourself is: "Who benefits from this Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt?". Where does the money trail lead?
Part of me agrees with you.
Part of me knows that both those statements are true, even if they are discouraging.
Both Android and Ubuntu are shades of closed source. They have very strong organizations behind them that are explicitly controlling the message they distribute. Mark Shuttleworth's corporate culture is one of arrogance and totalitarianism. Google has a longterm-orientated business strategy but still operates under a profit motive.
It's never troubling when these issues are highlighted the actual facts are what's troubling.
Let's take an analogy to help push my argument. While the Republican party is a big disparate tent that includes many different interest groups that agree on one random platform amongst the dozen general ones (i.e. small government, and/or state rights, and/or personal freedom vs domestic spying) pointing out internal sticking points does not instantly cause supporters to become a Progressive.
The same thing rings true of FOSS supporters. Pointing out that the largest Linux developers aren't pure FOSS doesn't make Linux users jump ship to a retarded OS like OSX.
Written in LXDE
OSX might be overpriced because of hardware, but to call it retarded goes to say that you haven't used Windows 8
As s friend of mine once taught me, “first class people hire first class people. second class people hire third class people”.
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
Canonical... for the love of all things great... do NOT end up like Apple, you started off doing really well, made a great Os and talked about convergence, so try not to slip up now with all this license bullcrap, open-source all the way baby!
That's because they own CentOS, and if they tried to force such a thing on Oracle, Oracle would own them.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Lighten up. He's just fixing linux until it's broken. For you. And money, of course. Hey, fucking with free software 'til you can convince a few people that it belongs to you beats writing stuff from scratch.
Sent from the iPad I found in your car.
Canonical is blowing smoke up people's asses. There is reference to *goals* about quality software. None of those mentioned goals include the Apache, BSD or GPL goals of enabling people to develop their own software,
When such a letter refuses to actually identify the license issue, spends its time talking about how the community needs to play nice without addressing any of the actual license concerns, that's frat boy party talk for "look away while I slip the roofies into this girls drink". It's time for Mint to watch their ass dealing with Ubuntu., and ideally time to publish the letter sent between Ubuntu and Mint.
This does not indicate what Canonical actually wrote to Mint. That would be a very _reasonable_ concern. But without seeing the lette to Mint, or one from Mint about the issue, it could be about the standards for white space indentation of source code in Ubuntu software that is _not_ under a well known open source license. Some open source licenses have been known to have very, very foolish restrictions: the old "DJB" license had a restriction that modifying a single line of the code meant that you could only publish Dan Bernstein's source code, and diffs to apply your differences. You could not publish binaries.
Canonical's licensing has also gotten odd, and itself deserves suspicion. The new MIR display system is "sort of" licensed under GPLv3 but contributors are required to sign an agreement that "grants Canonical the right to relicense your contribution under their choice of license. Given Canonical's recent history of inserting spyware into their distribution, sending all search results of your local disk back to their upstream servers, Canonical and their Ubuntu software have earned the considerable suspicion they are being treated with.
Thank you, I’ve just been searching for
info approximately this subject for a
while and yours is the greatest I’ve
came upon till now. But, what in regards
to the conclusion? Are you positive concerning
the supply?|What i don’t realize is in reality
how you’re no longer actually a lot more neatly-preferred
than you might be right now. You’re so intelligent.
and if you have free time
http://mahjongdimensions.info/ administrators
Since some will try to make the comparison, in fact CentOS and Scientific Linux do not use RedHat branding. They are also not covered by RedHat service agreements. There is no conflict or issue. Mint similarly also does NOT use Ubuntu branding, trademarks, etc. So what is this about?
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.... Clem responded, "Money isn't a primary concern. Although the original fee was in the hundreds of thousands pounds, it was easily reduced to a single digit figure. The licensing aims at restricting what Mint can and cannot do, mostly in relation to the OEM market, to prevent Mint from competing with Canonical in front of the same commercial partners."
If this is indeed true, then Canonical is demanding the right to tell Mint where they could NOT offer their distribution (such as OEM's) . It is this aspect that would clearly and openly violate the GNU GPL, and is nothing more than a crude shakedown more worthy of our local mob.
When open source started out it was more or less people with a drive to provide good applications and operating systems that were not reduced or controlled by any
one company. Apple, Microsoft, Google, Canonical. What has become clear is these companies like Google and Canonical are now trying to defend their moves to try and protect their open source projects in a sense that they almost consider them proprietary. In many ways they are but their roots are deeply entrenched in open source. As more of these projects like Chrome OS, Android, Firefox, Ubuntu try to commercialize they are facing push back from the loyal open source community.
Who I think are beginning to feel used and betrayed by these companies. Red Hat has never been questioned because much of their commercial success was all about support and services. When you bought Red Hat that's just what you bought. The lines are becoming vague though on what is open source and what is basically proprietary software created with open source projects?
Writing this on my new gamer-PC with 32 GB RAM and insane amounts of processors and CPU-power.
You don't need 32GB RAM for games. Most of games would run fine in 2GB -- I'm not joking. Just pull up Task Manager and see how much they allocate. It's not much.
They can CLAIM anything. They can claim their shit doesn't stink. That doesn't make it so. GPL is GPL.
And copyright law is copyright law which trumphs the GPL. If you make a photo book you can get a copyright on the selection and arrangement of photos that is separate from the copyright on the individual photo. In fact, they can be all public domain photos and you can still get a copyright on that particular mix. The GPL can't prevent them from being created, but they can control their use like the GPLv3 does:
A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger program, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an "aggregate" if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit.
The GPLv2 just said that a "mere aggregate" is fine and left the door wide open on that one, the GPLv3 says a "mere aggregate" is fine if and only if you don't use the compilation copyright for anything. So there's a good chance that if Ubuntu did try anything using their compilation copyrights anyone with GPLv3 code could claim it's a license violation.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
if you put their name on something they don't want you to make them look bad.
Canonical is within its right to require licenses for people wanting to make derivatives of its intellectual property. FOSS and the GPL doesn't prohibit that. The kicker is, though, what parts of Ubuntu's stack are actually IP of Canonical? Things like their software center would be and other parts they've developed, but the vast majority would not be. Likewise for the name and other branding. If you want to advertize that you are an Ubuntu derivative, then, you probably need to license it.
So, if you want to make a derivative of Ubuntu and not have to license it, then just leave out the Canonical specific stuff. OTOH, if you find that those things are important to your distro, then register for the license.
So long as in the end, when they WANT a license, money, promises, sex or whatever;
you can tell them to WANT as much as they can, in one hand and
shit as much as they can, in the other hand.Then instruct them to observe the realistic sum of their efforts, compare, contrast , analyze and extrapolate.
The bigger the fuss for the press , the better.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Just pull up Task Manager and see how much they allocate. It's not much.
Wow, he just said he's using Linux Mint. Major reading comprehension fail. On Linux we use top, or htop, or gtop.
Seconded. Systemd is a beta.
It's a very odd stance to take, so the question you have to ask yourself is: "Who benefits from this Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt?". Where does the money trail lead?
It isn't an odd stance at all. Being open is one thing but the practicality of it and ability to benefit from it are another. Tivo is open source too but other restrictions mean that openness isn't practically useful. Yes you can fork AOSP but you lose pretty much the entire Android application library in the process, you only have sparse 3rd party repositories or you have to create your own and we all know the key to success in this market is a large application library.
What "money trail"? Also what FUD? Android is still very obviously less locked down than proprietary alternatives and even if it were totally locked down how would that be any different to iOS or Windows? Android is not totally open and that is a fact, but so what? Just because this is being pointed out and its potential implications discussed that doesn't mean it is FUD and nor does it mean there is some big conspiracy against Android or Ubuntu. Why do people like you want to bury discussion of these implications? The real question is what is your agenda in trying to make this a taboo topic?
Letting anyone can make a derivative distro using Ubuntu branding is a big risk for Canonical.
They don't want people downloading crapbuntu (with broken softare, bloatware or malware), and thinking that it is an official product.
So asking remixers to take a licence acts as a form of quality control.#
http://ograblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/the-recent-ubuntu-community-council-marketing-drivel-about-mint-or-how-to-put-your-foot-into-it-with-a-run-up/
Mankind timed biology is today's illiterate. Mankind timed biology is so ignorant it thinks from BC AD with no other options. Mankind timed biology is a technological accident. Even the best programmers on earth are programmed by alphabetic technology.
My guess: Canonical is pissed that Mint gets more hits than they do on distrowatch. Hmmm, maybe it has to do with that yucky unity interface. Suck it up Canonical and compete with Mint!!!
Dear Microlimp: I give you 2 valid product keys for win7 and you reject both of them. Piss off you wankers!!!
Isn't that something we learn in math?
For some reason, there's a concerted campaign happening to try to convince people that successul Open Source projects are not really open. It's an odd thing to pretend, and I'm wondering what their motive is?
Have you seen the near-identical accusations around Android being pushed to the front page here?
"One of Android's biggest draws is its roots in open source. While Android is technically very open, from a practical standpoint it's much more difficult for device makers to distance themselves from Google"
It's a very odd stance to take, so the question you have to ask yourself is: "Who benefits from this Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt?". Where does the money trail lead?
i think they should just switch to BSD licensing if that's their argument... but as long as it's GNU GPL - they can't really do shit about it- since they're adopting for free anyway... *(minus cost of development etc etc etc)
windows 8 is trash like all the windows before it- but it is trash of a trashier standard as it is supposed to be an 'update/upgrade' when in reality its the same old slow shit repackaged to look like a shiny new pile of turds