Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing

Posted Feb 19, 2014 16:05 UTC (Wed) by ewan (guest, #5533)
In reply to: Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing by dlang
Parent article: Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing

Maybe you'd like to sign a licence agreement with me so that you can continue to post comments on LWN? There are no payments required or other onerous terms involved.

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.

Ubuntu Community Council statement on Canonical package licensing

Posted Feb 24, 2014 23:01 UTC (Mon) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

Let's suppose there's a grey area, such that you think there may possibly something one day who thinks there might be a problem. Given this thread I'd say there's enough doubt.

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.