Ubuntu intellectual property policy

[Bruce Perens]

I don't know how recently this group has discussed this, but the Ubuntu
intellectual property policy seems to be a bit over the top. I
understand their need to protect their trademarks, but I think they're
introducing some GPL conflicts in doing so to this extreme.

http://www.canonical.com/intellectual-property-policy


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 it
with the Trademarks. Otherwise you must remove and replace the
Trademarks and will need to recompile the source code to create your
own binaries. This does not affect your rights under any open source
licence applicable to any of the components of Ubuntu. If you need
us to approve, certify or provide modified versions for
redistribution you will require a licence agreement from Canonical,
for which you may be required to pay. For further information,
please contact us (as set out below).

We do not recommend using modified versions of Ubuntu which are not
modified in accordance with this IPRights Policy. Modified versions
may be corrupted and users of such modified systems or images may
find them to be inconsistent with the updates published by Canonical
to its users. If they use the Trademarks, they are in contravention
of this IPRights Policy. Canonical cannot guarantee the performance
of such modified versions. Canonical's updates will be consistent
with every version of Ubuntu approved, certified or provided by
Canonical.

[Thomas Charron]

Post by Bruce Perens
I don't know how recently this group has discussed this, but the Ubuntu
intellectual property policy seems to be a bit over the top. I understand
their need to protect their trademarks, but I think they're introducing
some GPL conflicts in doing so to this extreme.

Where is there a conflict, really? You can redistribute it, but you have
to take the name Ubuntu out of everything. Now, I'm not saying it's right,
but at the same time, they are just saying you can't reuse 'Ubuntu' if you
do.

Thomas

[luke.leighton]

Post by Bruce Perens
I don't know how recently this group has discussed this, but the Ubuntu
intellectual property policy seems to be a bit over the top. I understand
their need to protect their trademarks, but I think they're introducing some
GPL conflicts in doing so to this extreme.

it would be interesting to compare these "requirements" against those
of redhat, where they similarly request people not to use "redhat" in
recompiled / redistributed source code.

Post by Bruce Perens
Any redistribution of modified versions of Ubuntu must be approved,
certified or provided by Canonical if you are going to associate it with the
Trademarks. Otherwise you must remove and replace the Trademarks and will
need to recompile the source code to create your own binaries.

i see your point. one might reasonably claim that by including the
trademarks - and distributing them under the GPL - that canonical has
GPL-licensed those words. thus it cannot therefore impose
restrictions without itself losing rights under the GPL [and likewise
neither can redhat. dang. how long has it been before anybody even
noticed this, bruce?? :) ]

but there is another take on this: that canonical is the only company
that is permitted to do the distribution with the trademark, and that
all others must (including mirrors...) *REMOVE* the trademarks....
wait it says "modified", so if you're just a mirror you're ok.

however any company, individual or organisation that takes ubuntu
.debs and say even *adds* to them, that's redistribution, and they
will be forced - like the company that i work for who maintain their
own internal mirror and add their own packages - to comply with the
stupid requirements.

hmmm... i'll forward this to dr stallman privately and see what he thinks.

l.

[Henrik Nordström]

Post by luke.leighton
i see your point. one might reasonably claim that by including the
trademarks - and distributing them under the GPL - that canonical has
GPL-licensed those words. thus it cannot therefore impose
restrictions without itself losing rights under the GPL [and likewise
neither can redhat. dang. how long has it been before anybody even
noticed this, bruce?? :) ]

It's been discussed before.

Anyway, here is my take.

Any Linux distribution as a whole is never GPL-only. It is an aggregate
of many componends with a range of different licenses, more or less GPL
(in)compatible.

Since the components of a Linux distribution coexists by aggregation and
not linking the GPL do not extend across the component boundaries.
Because of this such aggregation can include components that are
incompatible with the GPL, for example a package with trademark images
and somewhat restrictive redistribution & use licenses.

Any such aggregate distribution might be considered a non-Free
distribution if you like, but is not automatically a GPL violation.

Post by luke.leighton
however any company, individual or organisation that takes ubuntu
.debs and say even *adds* to them, that's redistribution, and they
will be forced - like the company that i work for who maintain their
own internal mirror and add their own packages - to comply with the
stupid requirements.

It's not stupid requirements. Trademark owners have to protect their
trademark, and much stronger so than the similar needs in protecting
Copyrights. If you don't restrict trademark usage in a sensible manner
you risk it becoming commons and no longer a trademark.

As result you will find this kinds of restriction each time there is a
trademark involved. Even Debian have restrictions on how you may use the
Debian trademarks, quite notably related to this discussion "You cannot
use Debian trademarks [...] as the name of a product or service.".

In essence it's not a problem from GPL perspective. But yes, it's
annoying from an administrative perspective.

Regards
Henrik

[luke.leighton]

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 12:56 AM, Henrik Nordström

Post by Henrik Nordström
Since the components of a Linux distribution coexists by aggregation and
not linking the GPL do not extend across the component boundaries.
Any such aggregate distribution might be considered a non-Free
distribution if you like, but is not automatically a GPL violation.

... no i believe you're right - i spoke to dr stallman: the fsf's
view, as i understand it, is that yes it's not a GPL violation, but
they don't ethically like it, and as long as the removal requirements
are easy to comply with they don't make a fuss.

from a practical perspective for canonical for example it does mean
that nobody for example in the debian community (who runs mirrors for
example) is in the slightest bit interested in helping them out,
precisely because the distribution has become non-free.

i wish i were more able to separate out my dislike for these practices
from the actual legal / license compliance issues!

l.

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Luke,

Post by luke.leighton
from a practical perspective for canonical for example it does mean
that nobody for example in the debian community (who runs mirrors for
example) is in the slightest bit interested in helping them out,
precisely because the distribution has become non-free.

That's a bit of a blanket statement. Plus, some Canonical employees
were Debian contributors before being hired and have remained so, e.g.
Colin Watson.
http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=***@debian.org

Cheers, Ralph.

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

On Tue, 20 Aug 2013 23:22:43 +0100

Post by luke.leighton
i see your point. one might reasonably claim that by including the
trademarks - and distributing them under the GPL - that canonical has
GPL-licensed those words. thus it cannot therefore impose
restrictions without itself losing rights under the GPL [and likewise
neither can redhat. dang. how long has it been before anybody even
noticed this, bruce?? :) ]

Trademarks and copyrights are different laws, so I guess(I'm not a
lawyer) that it's possible to do both and be consistent with the law
and the GPL.

I read(I don't remember well where, but I could check the facts out if
needed) that the trademarks law were meant to protect the "consumers".

So I guess that if somebody takes an image licensed under a Free
Software license like the GPL or some licenses more widely used for
images such as the CC-by-sa, and modify it in a way that doesn't mislead
the people, I guess it would be consistent with such restriction, the
law, and the Free Software license used for the image.

I also guess that creating a misleading image from scratch(for
instance by not using the one released under a Free Software license
as a starting point), would really be problematic under the trademarks
law, and would not follow such restriction.

The fact that Ubuntu uses the "Intellectual property" word make it
easier to confuse trademarks, copyright, and patents...
Theses are 3 different laws that applies to different issues that
are not related.

Applying some conception that applies to one of theses law usually
don't work on the 2 others.

There are more details on that issue here [1].

Anyway I really wonder why Ubuntu uses that word.

I hope that their goal is not to make the users, developers and/or
distributors confused.

References:
[1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html

Denis.