Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
We believe there is no ill-will against Linux Mint, from either the Ubuntu community or Canonical and that Canonical does not intend to prevent them from continuing their work, and that this license is to help ensure that. What Linux Mint does is appreciated, and we want to see them succeed." There is no real discussion on what is being licensed; it would appear to be a fairly mundane trademark issue stemming from the fact that Linux Mint distributes binary packages taken directly from the Ubuntu repository.
Posted Feb 15, 2014 0:12 UTC (Sat)
by Zizzle (guest, #67739)
[Link] (8 responses)
I wonder if this is the final push they need to make it so.
As a happy Mint user I hope they do: Canonical and Ubuntu seems to be taking a very non-free and go-it-alone approach recently (except for the systemd surprise).
Posted Feb 15, 2014 2:55 UTC (Sat)
by tjc (guest, #137)
[Link] (4 responses)
What I am wondering is if this is related to Valve's decision to change course and base SteamOS on Debian rather than Ubuntu.
Posted Feb 15, 2014 4:11 UTC (Sat)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted Feb 15, 2014 11:26 UTC (Sat)
by highvoltage (subscriber, #57465)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Feb 16, 2014 1:37 UTC (Sun)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link]
Posted Feb 15, 2014 19:58 UTC (Sat)
by tjc (guest, #137)
[Link]
There was some information on Phoronix about this, but I can't find it. Phoronix must be one of the most self-linking sites on the Internet, which makes it hard to find anything without going around in big circles...
Posted Feb 15, 2014 3:13 UTC (Sat)
by hadrons123 (guest, #72126)
[Link] (2 responses)
Linux mint is hardly an independent distro at least by ubuntu's comparison with Debian. Ubuntu repackages 85% of Debian sources and just 15% of packages vary from Debian. So everyone is mostly using Debian.
Mint uses full ubuntu repositories with mostly theme changes from Linux mint. Mint hardly had 100-200 individual Linux mint specific packages since the alternate DE like MATE,cinnamon came along. All that stability people enjoy in Linux mint is becoz the bugs are first ironed out in Ubuntu and moreover mint freezes a lot of packages for stability concerns for the users.
Posted Feb 15, 2014 8:59 UTC (Sat)
by misc (subscriber, #73730)
[Link]
Posted Feb 15, 2014 15:12 UTC (Sat)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
[Link]
Posted Feb 15, 2014 0:16 UTC (Sat)
by oliwarner (subscriber, #81320)
[Link] (30 responses)
Seems iffy to me but IANAL.
Posted Feb 16, 2014 17:53 UTC (Sun)
by drag (guest, #31333)
[Link] (29 responses)
This is different then copyrights or patents... which you can happily let people continue to violate your 'rights', but later on you can still sue them for their violations.
Posted Feb 16, 2014 18:24 UTC (Sun)
by ewan (guest, #5533)
[Link] (9 responses)
Posted Feb 16, 2014 19:19 UTC (Sun)
by drag (guest, #31333)
[Link] (8 responses)
I think that it's not just that. You need to prevent your trademarks from becoming common jargon.
> It's far from clear what misuse Canonical are alleging here.
It is not even clear it's a trademark issue. However trademark issue is the only one they are legally compelled to act on. So in assuming that they care about trademark then we are really giving them the benefit of the doubt.
the other positive case maybe Mint links to Ubuntu-provided resources... like Ubuntu's repositories.. their physical servers. And that costs money. so it would be nice if they would talk to Ubuntu about that first. Maybe that sort of license.
If it's about copyrights oor something like that, then that it is a dickhead move on Ubuntu's part to try to turn it into some sort of licensing deal.
They seem to be wanting to say 'our intellectual property' but without actually saying it.
Posted Feb 16, 2014 20:46 UTC (Sun)
by ewan (guest, #5533)
[Link] (2 responses)
Right - you need to prevent people misusing the term 'Hoover' to mean 'Vacuum cleaner'. You don't need to prevent people using the term 'Ubuntu package' to mean 'Ubuntu package'.
And you're right, we're rather working on guesswork here, but the sheer weasel-wordedness of the 'statement' is a fair guide that there's nothing good here - people who want to issue a statement about something they feel entirely good and justified about just say what they mean flat out.
Posted Feb 18, 2014 20:50 UTC (Tue)
by rahvin (guest, #16953)
[Link] (1 responses)
Most lawyers recommend that companies establish and police trademark a lot like they do sexual harassment, that is setup strict policies and aggressively enforce the policy. This applies even when you agree and accept the use of the mark, such as by licensing the mark to the group using it.
This is essentially what Ubuntu is doing, to prevent the court from interpreting that Canonical has been lax is policing the marks use and as a result the mark has been diluted Canonical is providing licenses to other groups to use the mark. This in theory covers them from some future court claiming they've allowed everyone to use the mark and it's no longer valid because each user has been licensed to use the mark and Ubuntu has carefully policed the use of the trademark.
Because a US trademark can be taken away because of arbitrary rulings about dilution companies generally make it a policy to heavily police it's use. I agree it's silly but the lawyers wouldn't generally be so uniformly in favor of this type of behavior if it wasn't perceived as necessary to eliminate risk.
Posted Feb 19, 2014 11:57 UTC (Wed)
by njwhite (guest, #51848)
[Link]
Posted Feb 16, 2014 21:42 UTC (Sun)
by steveriley (guest, #83540)
[Link] (1 responses)
They do say it... http://www.canonical.com/intellectual-property-rights-policy
It claims compiled binaries "are in many cases copyright of Canonical." What?
Posted Feb 16, 2014 22:22 UTC (Sun)
by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639)
[Link]
-jef
Posted Feb 17, 2014 3:14 UTC (Mon)
by jengelh (guest, #33263)
[Link] (2 responses)
The mark was already a common language word before, so from one particular angle, it is somewhat hilarious. O the laws…
Posted Feb 17, 2014 18:14 UTC (Mon)
by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167)
[Link] (1 responses)
So "Duck Pizza" is not an acceptable trademark, because that's just saying you're using duck on or in the pizza somehow, a foodstuff, so what? You could not receive a registration for this mark.
But "Duck Microwaves" is OK because ducks have nothing to do with microwaves, it's just an arbitrary branding choice. Unless someone objected the trademark would be registered without trouble.
Posted Feb 17, 2014 19:58 UTC (Mon)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link]
Posted Feb 16, 2014 20:45 UTC (Sun)
by oliwarner (subscriber, #81320)
[Link] (18 responses)
To me, a mundane trademark issue is using a trademark (eg "Ubuntu") in the registered use without permission. That doesn't seem to be the issue here... But nobody seems to be able to point out what the actual issue is. Everything being suggested so far seems iffy and very far from mundane.
Posted Feb 17, 2014 8:21 UTC (Mon)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (17 responses)
It can't really be a trademark issue. Trademark law is supposed to stop me from defrauding the public by distributing my inferior homemade brown sugar water in curvy bottles labeled »Coca-Cola«. The Linux Mint people can't defraud the public by distributing original Ubuntu packages labeled as original Ubuntu packages (especially if they don't actually distribute them themselves, but point people to the original Ubuntu servers to get them from). If that was trademark infringement then every grocery store would be infringing Coca-Cola's trademark.
Posted Feb 17, 2014 9:22 UTC (Mon)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (16 responses)
Posted Feb 17, 2014 9:38 UTC (Mon)
by palmer_eldritch (guest, #95160)
[Link]
Posted Feb 17, 2014 16:04 UTC (Mon)
by ewan (guest, #5533)
[Link] (8 responses)
There's no damage to either consumers or to Ubuntu's reputation if users are getting Ubuntu packages without knowing it.
Posted Feb 17, 2014 19:49 UTC (Mon)
by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167)
[Link] (7 responses)
Dastar v 20th C Fox was a reverse passing off case that went to the Supreme Court, and lost, but note that it was peculiar circumstances, the public domain status of the recordings under dispute was clearly the deciding factor, if not for that the reverse passing would probably have been an infringement.
I assure you that if "Ewan brand cola" is just Coke with a different label (and especially if it's Coke poured from large bottles into smaller containers to be re-sold, thereby risking contamination in principle if not in fact) the Coca-Cola company will tell you to stop that, and if you don't they'll be back with an injunction.
Posted Feb 17, 2014 20:07 UTC (Mon)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (6 responses)
I don't think the Coca-Cola company gets to tell Ewan what to do – or not to do – with their product after he has bought it. (If he is selling beverages that are unfit for human consumption the local food safety authority might eventually be interested, though.)
Posted Feb 17, 2014 20:20 UTC (Mon)
by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167)
[Link] (5 responses)
Ewan does not get to label Coke "Ewan cola" and then sell it, and he also doesn't get to label it "Pepsi" and then sell it. These are not unreasonable restrictions, it seems to me, and there is no reason any ordinary person would fall foul of them. Indeed, even in the cases I've seen like Dastar where a Reverse Passing Off lawsuit failed, it's clear that the defendant knew they were trying something... naughty, just they believed correctly that it would prove to be legal.
Posted Feb 17, 2014 22:40 UTC (Mon)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link] (4 responses)
There is no copyright involved in the "Ewan Cola" example, so it sounds like a potentially very different case.
The claim you're making is that if you buy some product and rebrand it completely, so no one knows it was the original brand, that you could still somehow be bound by laws governing the original branding. That seems quite perverse to me, and add a level of obligation to transfers of goods that I think many people would not think existed.
That apparent perversity, plus that copyright was involved, makes me wonder if there was a lot more to that case you cited, and that perhaps it doesn't quite apply to the "Ewan Cola" example as you think? (No offence - I'm just really curious now to dig into this ;) ).
Posted Feb 18, 2014 5:29 UTC (Tue)
by gmatht (subscriber, #58961)
[Link]
Posted Feb 18, 2014 13:32 UTC (Tue)
by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167)
[Link] (2 responses)
Bristol Conservatories Ltd v Conservatories Custom Built Ltd concerns a new company building conservatories (that is, extensions to a residence which are mostly glazed and relatively lightweight structures). The company intuited that it would be much easier to attract customers if they could show previous examples of similar work of a high quality. But they were a new company, with no such examples to show. So their salesmen provided illustrations of the plaintiff's work instead. It was not important to the case who held copyright in these illustrations - after all the prospective buyers would have no reason to ask. This bit of deceit was found to be reverse passing off, the plaintiff was entitled to have their past work associated with them, not the defendant, because they did it.
Jurists have concerns about what you've call the "perversity" of reverse passing off, it's clearly at the edges of what the courts want to address. Extended too far it would suppress legitimate economic activity, e.g. if you buy product A and product B, and combine them to produce product C, you should generally be able to sell that, without needing the makers of A and B to come to any sort of agreement as to how to label it. But courts have found that in cases like Bristol Conservatories there was a legitimate purpose in prohibiting reverse passing off. So the question for a lawyer (if you were inclined to stray near this line) is whether the courts where you are might consider what you're doing to be on the far side of the line, and whether you can change what you do or obtain some sort of license so as to ensure you're not.
Posted Feb 18, 2014 16:02 UTC (Tue)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link]
But again this doesn't help us with the issue at hand. Unlike the conservatory builders, the Linux Mint people make no attempt to hide the fact that their distribution is based on Ubuntu. Nobody is actively being fooled.
This of course does not mean that Canonical couldn't still believe that the Linux Mint people ought to obtain a »license« from Canonical for their use of Ubuntu (although exactly what is licensed and why remains unclear to mere mortals), and that the Linux Mint people wouldn't prefer to agree to this in order to avoid legal hassle. On the other hand, it would probably be an utterly atrocious PR move on the part of Canonical to sue Linux Mint about this, on top of the uncertainty of who would win the suit.
Posted Feb 18, 2014 17:42 UTC (Tue)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link]
Posted Feb 17, 2014 18:48 UTC (Mon)
by rfontana (subscriber, #52677)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted Feb 17, 2014 20:08 UTC (Mon)
by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167)
[Link] (4 responses)
The idea in a Reverse Passing Off lawsuit is that the defendant did something that attracted good will which was deserved to the plaintiff to themselves instead.
In the Coca-Cola example we saw elsewhere, the customer believes Ewan brand cola is very good, with a distinctive flavour and not too sweet, but in fact this high quality cola drink is from Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola company worked very hard to come up with their recipe and to produce this cola, and they use their "Coke" trademark to ensure people associate the drink with them. So their good will was taken by Ewan unlawfully. With a good lawyer, and presuming Ewan doesn't have an undisclosed justification for what he did, Coca-Cola will win.
A Reverse Passing Off lawsuit isn't a money spinner. They're expensive (you have a lot of facts to prove and very little presumption on your side) and you can't expect much compensation, but you can expect to shut down the people doing the reverse passing off, which is usually the point.
Note that it's not illegal for you to buy Coke and put it in a bottle labelled "Ewan cola". That's fine. Knock yourself out. The problem arises, as with all trademark cases, when there's a third party consumer who is misled. When you sell that cola, or give it away to people as a raffle prize, or whatever, that's when you step across the line. Likewise then, the point where people think they're a "Mint" user but actually perhaps 90% of what they're using is coming from Canonical's servers, without the slightest effort by anybody connected with Mint, is where they may be close to a line. I'm not offering a legal opinion that it's not OK, but just which line it is that they may be straying close to.
Posted Feb 17, 2014 20:13 UTC (Mon)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (3 responses)
On the other hand, the fact that Linux Mint is to a very large extent based on Ubuntu and/or Debian is not exactly a well-kept secret. The Linux Mint web site, for example, is pretty obvious about it. It's not as if the Linux Mint people tried to create the impression that Linux Mint was all their own work.
Posted Feb 17, 2014 20:31 UTC (Mon)
by donbarry (guest, #10485)
[Link] (1 responses)
Contrast with the very busy Ubuntu homepage, which also nowhere mentions Debian. The "About" link, which is small and unobtrusive, also does not mention Debian. One has to find the "About Ubuntu" link, which then mentions Debian obliquely, as in Ubuntu "hired from" them, but not that Ubuntu remains directly parasitic from Debian for the great majority of its packages.
You have to go one level further down, to "Ubuntu and Debian", to find something that directly engages with the relationship, though -- predictably -- falsely. To say that Ubuntu has a "different community" when most of what it is comes from Debian is to significantly reinvent reality. That it has different people in *charge* of what it what it adds, brands, and markets is entirely true, but perhaps would not be so congenial to would-be nibblers. The greatest difference, of course, is that in Ubuntu's case it is not the distributed democracy of Debian, but the *one* person in charge, the self-appointed billionaire dictator for life, Mark Shuttleworth, czar over his vanity distribution.
Posted Feb 18, 2014 7:11 UTC (Tue)
by kugel (subscriber, #70540)
[Link]
Posted Feb 17, 2014 20:56 UTC (Mon)
by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167)
[Link]
I only wanted to point out that there are issues in the area we're talking about, that this concern about trademarks is concrete, a real thing that can have real repercussions in the world, and it doesn't come out as simple as "If you use your name on things you are 100% free and clear".
Posted Feb 15, 2014 2:29 UTC (Sat)
by Zorggy (guest, #51397)
[Link]
Posted Feb 15, 2014 3:27 UTC (Sat)
by djzort (guest, #57189)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted Feb 15, 2014 13:54 UTC (Sat)
by ovitters (guest, #27950)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Feb 15, 2014 15:25 UTC (Sat)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
[Link] (3 responses)
Of course, there's nothing wrong with making a downstream distribution build its own packages (see also Red Hat, CentOS, and family), but with Canonical it seems that you always have to ask why the terms are being changed now. And with the referenced article being full of the usual impenetrable and vague prose ("balance the needs of the community"), it's only natural for people to try and second-guess the underlying motivations.
Posted Feb 15, 2014 15:37 UTC (Sat)
by Tara_Li (guest, #26706)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Feb 15, 2014 16:55 UTC (Sat)
by NAR (subscriber, #1313)
[Link]
So Mint uses Canonical's infrastructure to provide a "Linux Mint" distribution. This could be something that Canonical doesn't like, but I don't see how it's related to license issues.
Posted Feb 17, 2014 20:01 UTC (Mon)
by ThinkRob (guest, #64513)
[Link]
The cynical interpretation is that Mint poses a threat to Canonical's (future?) revenue streams. Obviously if Canonical intends to slowly try to shift users towards using for-profit Canonical services/tools/etc. the easiest way to do that is to introduce them via the distro, gradually emphasizing the paid solutions more and more. (Basically the razor/blade model, with the distro being the razor.) As an example, look at Ubuntu One, the "store" (vs. say, synaptic).
That doesn't work too well when somebody modifies your razor to work with free blades though. By trying to marginalize downstream distros, Canonical can ensure that they still can shepherd users towards profit-making ventures without worrying that someone further down the line will strip out said shepherding before it reaches the end user.
Or at least that's the cynical take on it. The non-cynical one is to take everything that Canonical said at face value, and assume that it's really just a mundane legal issue.
Posted Feb 15, 2014 17:04 UTC (Sat)
by sebas (guest, #51660)
[Link] (8 responses)
Now, trademarks are a whole different thing altogether, but I would assume since Canonical willfully combine their trademark (which adds restrictions incompatible with the original licensing) they simply lose their right to defend the trademark for this piece of software. Otherwise, it would be rather easy to take some piece of copylefted code, add your trademark and then re-license it as you want.
With all that said, this policy that comes out of the Ubuntu community council makes them look like a complete tool. How on earth could you suck up to this kind of nonsense and still call yourself a "community council"? Maybe this "community councail" should be seen as the prolonged arm of Canonical legal, just like their community manager is a role in the marketing department.
Posted Feb 15, 2014 17:15 UTC (Sat)
by Otus (subscriber, #67685)
[Link] (3 responses)
Wouldn't that be exactly like the Firefox thing, where Mozilla doesn't let you distribute a modified Firefox unless you call it something else?
I.e. controversial but not against the license terms.
Posted Feb 15, 2014 17:46 UTC (Sat)
by sebas (guest, #51660)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Feb 16, 2014 1:36 UTC (Sun)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link]
The difference is that Ubuntu publicly offers the binaries, so they can't just not offer them to bad apples. The GPL does enforce restrictions on extra *license* terms, so it seems like they just used a poor mechanism.
Posted Feb 15, 2014 18:16 UTC (Sat)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link]
Posted Feb 15, 2014 18:06 UTC (Sat)
by mgraesslin (guest, #78959)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted Feb 15, 2014 19:16 UTC (Sat)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
Posted Feb 15, 2014 19:17 UTC (Sat)
by JMB (guest, #74439)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Feb 16, 2014 19:54 UTC (Sun)
by mgraesslin (guest, #78959)
[Link]
Ah I hope that doesn't come around the wrong way because I commented from an author perspective without clearly saying what I meant. I'm of course concerned about the freedom for users - in particular the 2nd freedom to "redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor". My perspective as an author is that I want that all my users have that freedom and I would feel fooled if I have to realize that there is a way to take that freedom away.
Posted Feb 15, 2014 17:22 UTC (Sat)
by jriddell (subscriber, #3916)
[Link] (13 responses)
http://blogs.kde.org/2014/02/14/no-licence-needed-kubuntu...
Posted Feb 15, 2014 22:54 UTC (Sat)
by jelmer (guest, #40812)
[Link] (3 responses)
(I commented on the Community Council's blog post to ask for clarification, but my comment is still held for moderation)
Posted Feb 16, 2014 0:34 UTC (Sun)
by jriddell (subscriber, #3916)
[Link]
Because no licence is needed under any considered interpretation of copyright law but they can get away with FUD from vague claims so people who don't have the time to consider it are left unsure.
Posted Feb 16, 2014 18:48 UTC (Sun)
by andrewsomething (guest, #53527)
[Link] (1 responses)
Right; it's all so vague. If it's really about distributing binary packages, why don't mirrors need to get a license? If it's about resources (though I can imagine how that would work), could Mint just host their own mirror and put that in their sources.list?
Posted Feb 16, 2014 19:00 UTC (Sun)
by andrewsomething (guest, #53527)
[Link]
Posted Feb 16, 2014 4:23 UTC (Sun)
by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
[Link] (8 responses)
So I think the trademark issue is legitimate. Ubuntu binary packages should be repackaged to remove/change mentions of Ubuntu.
Posted Feb 16, 2014 7:32 UTC (Sun)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link]
Posted Feb 16, 2014 10:13 UTC (Sun)
by jriddell (subscriber, #3916)
[Link] (6 responses)
Posted Feb 16, 2014 12:31 UTC (Sun)
by ewan (guest, #5533)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted Feb 16, 2014 18:36 UTC (Sun)
by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Feb 16, 2014 19:03 UTC (Sun)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
It's more like a Volkswagen dealer getting hold of brand-new BMWs on the grey market and confusing people into thinking they're a BMW dealer.
I think it's a bit like a copyright case we had here in Scotland. One paper deep-linked into another paper's content, but wrapped it their own (advertising) page frames. And the Judge got it!!!
So the first paper got done, not for copyright infringement (because the content was coming from the second, owner, newspaper's site), but for "passing off" - deliberately confusing visitors into thinking that the second paper's content had been written by the first paper.
If the casual Mint user is confused as to what packages are Mint, and what packages are vanilla Ubuntu, then Canonical has a point.
Cheers,
Posted Feb 16, 2014 22:33 UTC (Sun)
by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639)
[Link] (2 responses)
Yes or no.
Do the Mint live images contain Ubuntu marks?
If the answer is no to both questions... the I have a hard time seeing how Mint has run afoul of any trademarks.
Now if Ubuntu isn't keen on derivatives pointing users to their package repositories as addon installable content, then Ubuntu should probably reconsider relying on the public mirror approach to package distribution. Because inherent in that approach is the need to have anonymous public re-distributors.
Posted Feb 17, 2014 10:06 UTC (Mon)
by NAR (subscriber, #1313)
[Link] (1 responses)
Is it? I haven't used Mint, but I could imagine that I have a desktop with a large "Linux Mint" title in the background, then I open the package manager, select some packages, click on a button, then the packages get downloaded and installed. During all this time I may have absolutely no idea that I'm actually installing Ubuntu packages - the desktop says it's an operating system called "Linux Mint". On the server side it is Ubuntu who is redistribute their packages, but on the client side it is Mint. A casual user doesn't know (doesn't have to know) where the packages come from. That's a technical detail. The casual user uses the operating system tools (in this case, Linux Mint tools) to get updates, packages, etc. I think this is what matters.
Posted Feb 17, 2014 17:40 UTC (Mon)
by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639)
[Link]
I find it very hard to see how Canonical could argue that Mint is causing confusion in the market place. The technical specifics as to what repository individual packages come from...don't matter from a trademark confusion standpoint.
That's not to say that Ubuntu as a project couldn't do a better job of making it easier for derivatives who want to reuse binary builds coming out of the the Ubuntu build system without accidentally tripping over a trademark. Ubuntu could do like fedora does, and put all the protected trademarked material into a single package and make that package specifically conflict with a generic version of the package without the protected content. That way downstream distributors, acting in good faith, who are mixing binary packages from multiple repositories (including the Ubuntu repos), could deliberately exclude that one package from the Ubuntu repo, with all the trademark junk, in their client configuration.
When you publicly mirror your aggregate repository of open source licensed software, you should anticipate the existence of downstream derivatives who remix that binary software with other binary content into a new binary derivative. The cleanest way to do that, that minimizes the need for lawyer action, is to isolate the trademark protected items and put them into a single package in the aggregate repository and police the re-use of that one package and provide instructions and tooling to help derivative makers from accidentally pulling in that one package. Spreading trademarked material through the archive, just causes problems for everyone... including the main project..because then they have to pay for more lawyers to police the more complicated packaging situation.
Posted Feb 16, 2014 7:04 UTC (Sun)
by eean (subscriber, #50420)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Feb 16, 2014 7:38 UTC (Sun)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (3 responses)
by comparison, getting an agreement that sidesteps that and avoids all the work seems pretty attractive. I don't know what Canonical is asking for as part of the license, but they do have good reasons to be seen defending their trademark.
Posted Feb 16, 2014 19:03 UTC (Sun)
by eean (subscriber, #50420)
[Link] (2 responses)
IMO it's just good engineering to have your build process be easily reproducible. Is Launchpad full of secret sauce?
Posted Feb 16, 2014 19:51 UTC (Sun)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link] (1 responses)
If and when verifiable builds come into fashion and are picked up by distributions, this might change.
Posted Feb 16, 2014 20:28 UTC (Sun)
by eean (subscriber, #50420)
[Link]
I do feel like anyone with access to their own Open Build Server could build openSUSE from scratch without too much trouble.
Posted Feb 16, 2014 7:16 UTC (Sun)
by JoeF (guest, #4486)
[Link]
Posted Feb 16, 2014 15:12 UTC (Sun)
by jzb (editor, #7867)
[Link] (19 responses)
On the other hand, if I remember/understand correctly, Mint just points its users at Ubuntu repositories for the bulk of its packages. I don't think Canonical would be out of line asking Mint to host its own package repositories instead, since that's clearly going beyond just redistributing binaries and actually using Canonical's hosting/bandwidth resources. It doesn't seem unreasonable to ask Mint to pay its own hosting costs there.
Posted Feb 16, 2014 16:25 UTC (Sun)
by ewan (guest, #5533)
[Link] (18 responses)
Posted Feb 16, 2014 16:35 UTC (Sun)
by jzb (editor, #7867)
[Link] (17 responses)
Canonical's intent was obviously to host those packages for their own users. At a certain point, it seems reasonable for them to ask downstream derivatives to pay their own hosting bill.
Posted Feb 16, 2014 16:43 UTC (Sun)
by ewan (guest, #5533)
[Link] (1 responses)
Plus, according to their mirrors page there are 432 registered archive mirrors of Ubuntu; are Canonical actually paying the hosting bills for all of them?
And finally, even if you think it's reasonable to want Mint to stop, is it also reasonable to go about trying to stop them by means of vague hand-wavey legal threats?
Posted Feb 16, 2014 17:18 UTC (Sun)
by jzb (editor, #7867)
[Link]
No, which is why the parent comment expressed my desire to know specifically what Canonical is using as rationale for a "license." It's entirely possible for both parties to be in the wrong...
Posted Feb 18, 2014 19:28 UTC (Tue)
by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
[Link] (14 responses)
How much does Canonical actually pay to host package distribution? From the large number of high quality mirrors, I'm guessing very little.
Posted Feb 18, 2014 20:30 UTC (Tue)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link]
Posted Feb 19, 2014 2:04 UTC (Wed)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (12 responses)
this is very different from what it would be if the mirrors were hosting content for their own reasons and Ubuntu were to start pointing people at those sites to support Ubuntu. In that case it would be Ubuntu that would be gaining all the benefit and controlling the load to those sites. This would be very questionable and is what Mint is doing to Ubuntu.
Posted Feb 19, 2014 14:10 UTC (Wed)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link] (11 responses)
Posted Feb 19, 2014 15:31 UTC (Wed)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (10 responses)
Now, if someone can present terms in the license that they object to, let's talk, but I think it's very reasonable in principal to ask for a formal license.
Posted Feb 19, 2014 16:05 UTC (Wed)
by ewan (guest, #5533)
[Link] (1 responses)
I'm guessing you wouldn't, because you don't need my permission to post here in the first place, and there's no reason you shouldn't just carry on.
The problem is Canonical making vague threats about Mint's needing a licence when there's no apparent reason that they would. It a claim that Mint is doing something they're not permitted to do. It is an accusation of wrongdoing. And it's likely total nonsense.
Posted Feb 24, 2014 23:01 UTC (Mon)
by kleptog (subscriber, #1183)
[Link]
What I would as do Ubuntu is get together with Mint, talk about what Mint is doing and say that you don't care about the appearance of ubuntu in the file names, stuff like that. Then you write a nice document about what everyone is doing and how you don't think they need a licence but if they did you'd give them one.
Then you send that to the lawyers and they probably turn it into a document which may or may not be a licence depending on the colour of the light. Now Mint can continue confident that Ubuntu is not going to get upset at some point in the future. And Ubuntu can tick the box that says trademark enforcement. Grey area resolved.
Looked at this way, you're not really signing a licence agreement so much as a statement of facts about Ubuntu and Mint that lets everyone get on with life.
Posted Feb 19, 2014 20:00 UTC (Wed)
by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
[Link] (7 responses)
Posted Feb 19, 2014 20:19 UTC (Wed)
by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639)
[Link]
All that can be said right now.. is that based on the content Mint hsa been distributing in their install and live images, they do not appear to be including any Canonical owned trademark protected works and thus a trademark license from Canonical has not been required.
However, that is not to say that Mint's plans in the future would or would not benefit from being a licensee of the Canonical owned trademarks. If Mint has signed a licensing agreement which includes access to the Canonical owned trademarks, Mint could start including those trademarks in future images. Being able to do that could reduce their engineering burden as they would no longer have to rip these trademarks out. So really Canonical could have actually helped Mint developers out by offering them a license.
Mint could materially benefit from being a licensee, without being compelled to take a license. That is Mint assessment to make in terms of value-add of being a licensee of the marks.
There is absolutely no evidence, so far put forward publicly, that Canonical has threatened anyone into taking a license based on erroneous legal theories surrounding trademark compliance. No evidence at all. People are jumping to conclusions as to what actually transpired to date.
But I am deeply concerned about the chatter coming from multiple Canonical employees concerning their opinions about the legality of Mint's re-use of Ubuntu built binaries, generally. And while this is not evidence of Canonical's legal opinion on the matter, its a red flag with regard to the contextual culture inside the Canonical fenceline about what the herd's understanding of the legal issues are. I fear greatly, that the discussion points I'm seeing cropping up are representative of the majority thinking inside the fenceline is. Its its down right dangerous thinking.
It is this additional need from people inside the Canonical fenceline to rationalize a "need" for derivatives to take on a license that is deeply concerning and points to a need for additional clarity. If your employees are going on and expounding such grotesque misunderstanding of what copyright and trademark laws actually do and how your company plans to enforce them.. then you need to do a much better job providing clarity on the issue. Because right now,the crazy is filling up the vacuum of understanding created by the vague "ip" policy language.
Posted Feb 19, 2014 23:03 UTC (Wed)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (5 responses)
we don't know the details, but there have been several plausible scenarios posted here. People who are being asked are getting the details, apparently none of them have thought that they are so unusual to make it worth posting details about them, so I have no reason to doubt the summary.
Posted Feb 20, 2014 0:09 UTC (Thu)
by ewan (guest, #5533)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Feb 20, 2014 0:50 UTC (Thu)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link] (1 responses)
Yes, it's possible to take source files of Ubuntu packages, remove all places where “ubuntu” trademark is used and produce “ubuntu-clean” distribution. CentOS does that to RedHat's packages. But Linux Mint does not do that: instead it pulls Ubuntu packages, trademakes and all then does some live surgery on top of them. First of all Ubuntu packages are branded (their version string includes “ubuntu” in it and it's shown in various places), but it goes beyond that: a lot of packages include string “ubuntu” in various places (think “lsb_release -i”). Linux Mint just takes all these packages without any modifications, installs them “as is” then overwrites these lines on each boot (see here, for example). I don't really see how such activity may ever be considered “really, really esoteric issue”.
Posted Feb 20, 2014 1:17 UTC (Thu)
by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639)
[Link]
I know why server is a centos server.... even though it has the file /etc/redhat-release in the system, because I the contents of that file say CentOS.
If the system is purporting to be Mint, then its meeting the requirements of trademark enforcement. I think how Mint goes about setting up its files is a hack, but I don't think its going to meet the bar of causing confusion in the marketplace.
I love that question. Someone enabled the Mint repositories on their Ubuntu system.. pulls in the packages from Mint repositories which include the Mint branding (required by Mint's MATE packages) and now their system advertises itself as Mint and the Ubuntu Software Center gets confused because it doesn't expect to be running on a Mint branded computer. Oh the irony.
The fact that pulling packages from Mints repository, breaks the Ubuntu software application, which is designed to work ONLY on Ubuntu systems... is actually an even stronger indication that Mint is doing its job correctly with regard of trademark due diligence. Even the Ubuntu software center thinks its running on Mint and fails to work as a result! Awesome.
Good job Mint.
Posted Feb 20, 2014 1:26 UTC (Thu)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (1 responses)
Or set something up that does the same thing as Mint and see what the Canonical Lawyers ask you to license?
Posted Feb 20, 2014 1:44 UTC (Thu)
by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639)
[Link]
And then we can install a base Mint system using that image and see if we can detect any existing Canonical owned trademark material at all on the filesystem left behind by the install process.
And then we can go to Mint's repositories and check all its packages for any Canonical owned trademark material.
We don't have to be lawyers to look for trademarked material. If we don't find any, than its pretty obvious there's nothing to worry about.
Remembering of course that filenames on the system with the word Ubuntu in them are not trademark protected instances nor are packagenames which can be used to cause marketplace confusion.
If that were not true, then Red Hat would need also be a licensee, as Fedora has both packagenames and filenames with the word ubuntu in them...as part of downloadable content. And I think Debian as well, right... Debian has packages which drop payloads using filename with the word ubuntu in them.
I would LOVE to see Canonical ask Red Hat to be a licensee on the grounds that Fedora ships files with the word ubuntu in the name as part of a trademark due diligence campaign. L-O-V-E I-T. It would be like Christmas.
Posted Feb 16, 2014 18:47 UTC (Sun)
by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
[Link] (7 responses)
I have news for you. Many Ubuntu users are first-time Linux users. Not me -- I started with Slackware (installed by someone else), then Red Hat, then Debian, and finally Ubuntu (in between I dabbled with BSDs too). But I have used Ubuntu longer than any other OS to date. Most recent Linux users I know started with Ubuntu and stuck with it.
The amount of hate Ubuntu gets from non-users for Unity (when the competition is GNOME3), or Mir (when Wayland has promised for years and not delivered), or Upstart (when it was first on the block), is beyond absurd.
And in this particular case it seems totally obvious that Ubuntu needs to protect its trademark. Yet when other distros are not just using Ubuntu packages, but free-riding on Ubuntu's servers and bandwidth, it's Ubuntu that gets most of the nasty comments above.
People like to claim that Ubuntu free-rides on others' work. If so, why didn't those others' work become as successful? Ubuntu offers a usable system for nontechnical users, probably the first Linux distro to do so. Debian, Fedora and others could have done it but didn't. All these whines are therefore in the most appalling taste.
Posted Feb 16, 2014 19:15 UTC (Sun)
by eean (subscriber, #50420)
[Link]
Posted Feb 17, 2014 12:53 UTC (Mon)
by ovitters (guest, #27950)
[Link]
I don't like Upstart, but I liked it initially. I advocate systemd, but hate mindless criticism regarding Ubuntu. Your comments seems like you put everyone in a box, "anti-" this or "pro-" that. There is some mindless things going on, but leave it as that. Suggesting that cricicism on Mir is absurd is weird.
Posted Feb 17, 2014 15:56 UTC (Mon)
by fandom (subscriber, #4028)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Feb 17, 2014 16:09 UTC (Mon)
by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted Feb 17, 2014 16:12 UTC (Mon)
by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Feb 18, 2014 12:44 UTC (Tue)
by fb (guest, #53265)
[Link] (1 responses)
IMHO the problem with Ubuntu is exactly that, it is the only distribution that managed to have some success reaching out to ordinary users. Many Linux desktop users/enthusiasts/proponents get grumpy coming to terms with that.
Posted Feb 18, 2014 12:55 UTC (Tue)
by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458)
[Link]
Did I hear "sacred spirit of Unix" and "end user" by any chance?
Posted May 29, 2015 18:40 UTC (Fri)
by JeremyD (guest, #102878)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted May 29, 2015 20:35 UTC (Fri)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link]
you can require conditions for use of a trademark without affecting the copyright license.
Redhat and Mozilla have been doing this for years. Canonical isn't doing anything new
Posted Jun 3, 2015 8:12 UTC (Wed)
by bandrami (guest, #94229)
[Link]
Wait, what? No. Gah. The opposite. By definition, nothing covered by the GPL is in the public domain, because the GPL requires on the work being copyrighted to begin with.
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Linux mint intends to provide a distro release every 6 months and when you rebase to Debian Testing or unstable it would involve a lot of work which basically includes duplicating ubuntu's work which I don't see it happening.
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
If the packages come from Canonical's servers or some mirror, you could argue that they're not the ones distributing the packages.
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
To satisfy your curiosity, it is probably best to read actual case. Of particular relevance is the following excerpt:
Try reading the original case file.
“That claim [false designation of origin] would undoubtedly be sustained if Dastar had bought some of New Line's Crusade videotapes and merely repackaged them as its own. Dastar's alleged wrongdoing, however, is vastly different: It took a creative work in the public domain —the Crusade television series—copied it, made modifications (arguably minor), and produced its very own series of videotapes.” — DASTAR CORP.
v.
TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORP. ET AL.
So it sounds that e.g. packaging cola as Ewan's cola could be problematic, but adding a shot of mint vodka and calling it a mint cocktail would probably be fine. I understand origin is not precisely defined; the case goes through various possible interpretations of what precisely an “origin” is. If Canonical interprets origin as being the webserver from which the files from which the distro collects downloads its deb files, it is arguable that some sort of agreement needs to be reached about use of trademarks. (All of this needs to be taken with a grain of salt since I am neither a lawyer nor someone with any inside information on this license.)
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Likewise then, the point where people think they're a "Mint" user but actually perhaps 90% of what they're using is coming from Canonical's servers, without the slightest effort by anybody connected with Mint, is where they may be close to a line.
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
[Mint] they're just including Ubuntu's repositories as a place you can get packages *from*.
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Additional restrictions on derivative works
Additional restrictions on derivative works
Additional restrictions on derivative works
Additional restrictions on derivative works
Additional restrictions on derivative works
Additional restrictions on derivative works
Additional restrictions on derivative works
I would really like to get the opinion of the Software Freedom Law Center or RMS whether binary packages are a derivative work.
Since the GPL wouldn't prevent binary-only distribution if binary packages aren't a derivative work, it's clear what RMS's opinion is. (Of course, that's just an opinion -- license authors don't get to say what constitutes a derivative work, only lawyers and judges working from the entirely reasonable position that software is basically like the books and plays that copyright was written to work with. Oh wait.)
Additional restrictions on derivative works
Ubuntu/Canonical may have several valid points to grant another distribution to use their binary packages on their servers - bandwidth (they have to pay) and branding (if e.g. a Mint installation has trouble due to Ubuntu binary packages, it may not be the fault of the packages but core changes in Mint).
As Ubuntu comes with source, GPL is fulfilled and that can be used without licensing on the server of the derivative distributions - which seems to be the case for the RHEL clones.
A GPLv4 to force free usage of infrastructure by competitors is not on FSF/SFLC agenda I suppose.
Using also binary parts without source (not under GPL license) or artwork with copyright or making defaults restricting users' freedom for convenience is a different story - but legally correct (IANAL).
The only question here is if the Mint developers are happy or have problems with the outcome.
Additional restrictions on derivative works
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Do you have any idea why they're being so vague about what this supposed licensing is for?
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Do you have any idea why they're being so vague about what this supposed licensing is for?
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
"Maintainer: Ubuntu Mozilla Team <ubuntu-mozillateam@lists.ubuntu.com>"
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Wol
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Mint is pointing people to public repositories of packages. That's it. Mint is not redistributing those packages to users. The only people redistributing ubuntu are the public mirrors of Ubuntu who are publishing the repository contents verbatim.
Do the Mint installable media contain the Ubuntu marks?
Who is redistributring ubuntu packages? Its the established Ubuntu mirrors.
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
building
building
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building
building
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
I won't create an Ubuntu-One account to read it...
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
If people are using the packages, then they are 'their users'; Canonical don't get to dictate the configuration of their users' systems, and I'm not seeing much of a meaningful distinction between a project like Mint that uses a lot of Ubuntu packages with some bits on top, and a project like RPM Fusion that 'uses' Fedora with bits on top.
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Second Centos ships files on the system with redhat in the name.
Doing this is not a problem from a trademark enforcement stance.
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing
Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing