Why Do You Need License From Canonical To Create Derivatives? 118
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?"
License needed only for specific things (Score:5, Informative)
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.
1 difference between most, including RH, and Canon (Score:5, Informative)
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.
There's a difference (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:License needed only for specific things (Score:5, Informative)
Most famously, Debian renaming Firefox to Iceweasel [wikipedia.org], and CentOS's erstwhile references to Red Hat only as a "prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor."
Re:1 difference between most, including RH, and Ca (Score:4, Informative)
They can CLAIM anything. They can claim their shit doesn't stink. That doesn't make it so. GPL is GPL.
Re:License needed only for specific things (Score:5, Informative)
Correct. I'm no fan of Canonical when they try to impose their will (Unity of course being the biggest example), but for fuck's sake people this is making a big deal out of literally nothing.
Quoting directly from the Canonical Intellectual Property Rights Policy [canonical.com] (emphasis mine):
Just like Mozilla, just like Red Hat, and just like many other major open source projects Ubuntu uses trademarks to protect their brand. Don't use their brand and you're just forking an open source project as normal. See also Iceweasel, CentOS, etc.
Re:License needed only for specific things (Score:5, Informative)
Stranglehold?
Seems a bit much if you ask me. You can use every bit of Ubuntu except a fee trademarks and logo s.
Just the same way Ubuntu uses every bit of Debian.
Every distro has a few branding features, always separate, never hidden, that you can neither need, nor would you want if you were starting your own distros.
But you have missed the point of the story: Ubuntu doesn't actually claim you can't use their distro to base your own distro on. All they really claim is you can't use their branding.
Re:License needed only for specific things (Score:5, Informative)
In the case of GPLv3-licensed components, the requirement to recompile the source probably violates section 7 of the license which specifies exactly what additional terms may be applied to copies of a covered work (which includes copies in object form, ie. libraries and executables). Their requirement that you not redistribute the binaries isn't a permissible addition, it's not specified in that list. And such works couldn't contain Ubuntu's trademarks because the terms Ubuntu gives for use of their trademarks isn't compatible with GPLv3, if they included their trademarks in a piece of GPLv3 software they wouldn't be allowed to distribute the result themselves. Of course they cover that in the last sentence, putting them technically within the rules because that last sentence negates everything before it when it comes to GPL-licensed components. It's kind of like they're saying "You have to pay Canonical a daily fee to park anywhere in San Diego. The daily fee is $100 for passenger cars, $200 for light trucks, SUVs and vans, $500 for commercial vehicles. This does not affect your right to park in any part of San Diego not owned by Canonical.". It's just a convoluted, inverted way of saying "You have to pay these fees to park in Canonical's parking lot.".