
Ubuntu trademark nonsense - carey
http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/trademark_nonsense/
======
tombrossman
Can someone explain why it is not possible to simply ignore Canonical's
aberrant behaviour and carry on as before? They aren't a court nor do they
have any law enforcement powers, it's just a company expressing a preference.

Canonical: _" We require that you remove all trademarks entirely even if using
them wouldn't be a violation of trademark law."_

The rest of the planet: _" Go pound sand."_

Isn't this a more logical response than submitting to their request? Are
developers concerned that Canonical will haul them into court for an expensive
legal battle, regardless of who is right? This can happen I suppose, but I am
not seeing the down side to ignoring their demands.

~~~
comex
Canonical is attempting to use _copyright_ law to enforce its trademark
policy, at least according to mjg59. If you only work with upstream sources,
that isn't a problem, but redistributing binaries is an important use case,
especially with Docker.

> Canonical assert that the act of compilation creates copyright over the
> binaries, and you may not redistribute those binaries unless (a) the license
> prevents Canonical from restricting redistribution (eg, the GPL), or (b) you
> follow the terms of their IP policy. This means that, no matter what
> Dustin's blogpost says, Canonical's position is that you must ask for
> permission before distributing any custom container images that contain
> Ubuntu binaries, even if you use no Ubuntu trademarks in the process. Doing
> so without their permission is an infringement of their copyright.

[https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/37113.html](https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/37113.html)

~~~
richardwhiuk
Canonical asserting that the act of compilation creates copyright over the
binaries doesn't make that statement true, and IANAL but I don't think there's
sufficient evidence that it's likely to be true either - it's not a derived
work - it is the work, so the same license as applies to the work would apply.

~~~
DannyBee
Compilation copyrights exist and are very light copyrights. The viability of
their claim i sadly can't talk about[1], but i can tell you what it would
actually protect is _very_ small. It's basically only what they add to it (and
they must add something to have a valid compilation copyright). To quote the
copyright act:

"The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the
material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the
preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive
right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent
of, and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or
subsistence of, any copyright protection in the preexisting material."

So yeah.

[1] Sorry. Once legal things that have an impact on the company i work for
reach a certain point, I can no longer safely discuss them. I can tell you
what the copyright act says, which is:

A “compilation” is a work formed by the collection and assembling of
preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or arranged
in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work
of authorship. The term “compilation” includes collective works.

I'll let others be the judge of whether what they do by compiling things into
binaries meets the minimum standards to create an original work of authorship.

~~~
marcoperaza
I'm not sure the legal rules around "compilation" (collections of poems) can
be applied to a totally different issue, compilation of software from source
to binary with a standard process. They don't have much in common except for
the word.

~~~
merb
What if they use a custom process so that the binary with the standard process
will be a "little" bit different? Actually both used the same source, but a
different set of tooling, maybe even a special plugin for clang to get
ubuntu.com somewhere into the binary file. is the binary still copyright fee
or isn't it? actually what if it is gpl, does gpl also mean, that the compiler
needs to be gpl? what if the compiler adds something, i.e. a ubuntu trademark?
I mean i could even sell the binary. i just need to give the source since gpl
only applies to the source level, the question about the packaged file is
actually left out and I don't think I could resell it without recompilation if
somebody copyrights 'his' binary.

~~~
marcoperaza
And what if I then replaced all of the ubuntu strings and images in the binary
package? You raise some good points. It's definitely a nuanced issue.

------
chao-
What does Linux Mint do, especially given its modest popularity? I don't know
about code but their website lists "Based on Debian and Ubuntu" as a "reason
for succuss".

~~~
abrowne
They have a license from Canonical:
[http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2014/02/13/community-council-
statem...](http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2014/02/13/community-council-statement-on-
canonical-package-licensing/)

------
nemoniac
So does this mean you can't use Ubuntu in a program that wants to test whether
it (the program) is running on Ubuntu?

~~~
carey
Unless it's GPL or similar, that's the claim. I'd hope that something like

    
    
        case *buntu)
    

would avoid using their trademark, if you can't just test for Debian
derivatives.

~~~
alloyed
From [http://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-
policies/intellectual-...](http://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-
policies/intellectual-property-policy)

>You will require Canonical’s permission to use: (i) any mark ending with the
letters UBUNTU or BUNTU which is sufficiently similar to the Trademarks or any
other confusingly similar mark, and (ii) any Trademark in a domain name or URL
or for merchandising purposes

That sounds like it covers *buntu too, unfortunately

~~~
joeyh
Good grief.

Sounds like "buntish" is the best option then, or something like that.

------
justinclift
Call it *untu, and be done with it? :D

------
cubahacker
if you are interested in software freedom and think Ubuntu has a problem, then
please explain how this redhat export control policy fits into your world:
[http://www.redhat.com/licenses/exportcontrol.html](http://www.redhat.com/licenses/exportcontrol.html)

~~~
i80and
I think almost all non-lawyers want to export to Cuba. The problem is that
until the US government stops the embargo, US-based companies are often loathe
to contract with companies that offer services to Cuba.

------
pekk
"I start wondering ..." announces another incoming bundle of FUD absent any
confirmation from Ubuntu. Claims about the legal position of Ubuntu are flying
around that are completely unsubstantiated. If we are going to publicly bury
Ubuntu, let's not do it on the basis of fevered suppositions, let's have it
from their own mouth.

~~~
joeyh
mjg59 has been trying to get this clarified for quite some time. Ubuntu has
had plenty of opportunity.

