Canonical legal department requesting to license packages used by Ubuntu derivatives?

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20131209

[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Nunito]Third, and I think this is a point other Linux news websites are ignoring, Clem claims he has been asked by Canonical's legal department to license the binary packages used by Ubuntu. To me this is a scary thought. Ubuntu is a base distribution for many projects, some of them (such as Mint and Kubuntu) are quite successful. Clem's statement makes me wonder if Canonical has approached other open source projects about licensing the right to access Ubuntu's package repositories. If so, what might follow? Would derivative distributions need to pay to use Canonical's packages? How would Canonical enforce such a policy, with lawyers, by blocking access to the repositories if a user isn't using Genuine Ubuntu? Canonical would certainly have the right to restrict access to its packages, they are on Canonical's servers after all. However, most Linux distributions are quite open about allowing anyone to access their software repositories and I wonder if Canonical might be acting in a short-sighted manner if they are trying to license access.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Nunito]With these thoughts in mind I contacted Canonical and asked if they could shed any light on the issue. At the time of writing I have not received a reply. An e-mail to the Linux Mint project asking for details yielded much better results. Clement Lefebvre responded the following day and, while he wasn't able to go into specific details as talks with Canonical are still on-going, he was able to share a few pieces of information. When asked if Canonical was hoping to collect a fee for using their binary packages, Clem responded, "[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#990000][FONT=Nunito]Money isn't a primary concern. Although the original fee was in the hundreds of thousands pounds, it was easily reduced to a single digit figure. The licensing aims at restricting what Mint can and cannot do, mostly in relation to the OEM market, to prevent Mint from competing with Canonical in front of the same commercial partners.[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT=Nunito]"[/FONT][/COLOR]

[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Nunito]Clem went on to indicate Canonical has not offered any threats nor discussed enforcing any licensing terms. When I asked what Mint's plans were concerning the licensing deal Clem answered, "[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#990000][FONT=Nunito]We don't think the claim is valid (i.e. that you can copyright the compilation of source into a binary, which is a deterministic process). With that said, Ubuntu is one of Mint's major components and it adds value to our project. If we're able to please Canonical without harming Linux Mint, then we're interested in looking into it. As negative as this may sound, this is neither urgent nor conflictual. It's a rare occasion for Canonical and Linux Mint to talk with one another and although there are disagreements on the validity of the claim, things have been going quite well between the two distributions and both projects are looking for a solution that pleases all parties.[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT=Nunito]"[/FONT][/COLOR]

An interesting read. Clem knows what he is doing. I've been using Mint for years because it works. The risk/level asignment to packages just means that kernel and xorg updates are not done automatically--reducing the anguish of a non-bootable or black-screen system. These forums are littered with posts of kernel and xorg updates that bork a system. With Mint, you have to plan some time to perform them as a group an be ready to fix any breakage. With stock ubuntu--all updates are suggested and applied with one or two clicks. This can result in a non-bootable or black-screen system if you are not prepared for it.

Mint also fixes/addresses a lot of issues that users find in stock Ubuntu. I won't list them, but there are a lot of tweaks that are applied--again many posts on these forums for how to perform these same tweaks.

The licensing aspect is interesting. I can see using a license to maintain some Ubuntu branding elements or link into Ubuntu/Canonical services, but for just using the package repositories and including a non-compete clause--I fail to see how that is open-source friendly. Being friendly (and human) was something that Ubuntu originally stood for.

tgalati4 said:

The licensing aspect is interesting. I can see using a license to maintain some Ubuntu branding elements or link into Ubuntu/Canonical services, but for just using the package repositories and including a non-compete clause--I fail to see how that is open-source friendly. Being friendly (and human) was something that Ubuntu originally stood for.

Yip, in essence Debian could adopt the same attitude with Ubuntu if they wanted as they initially pull in the Debian repos.

Will be interesting to see how this all plays out, if not handled correctly I think we could expect a big backlash.

No offense to our Latin Brothers, but this sounds like a Mexican Standoff.

http://www.soundonsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/mexican-standoff-photo.jpg

tgalati4 said: No offense to our Latin Brothers, but this sounds like a Mexican Standoff.

http://www.soundonsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/mexican-standoff-photo.jpg

I don't see anywhere in the article where there is any discord between the two parties as of yet, there can't be a Mexican standoff, if both parties are agreeable to discussion.

I was referring to Debian forcing licensing to Ubuntu which forces licensing to Mint--nobody wins in this situation. It's not likely to happen, but licensing of repositories does bring up some interesting dilemmas in the FOSS community.

Legal Eagles drumming up business?

ed.

Linux is about open-source. I use it because its community-driven and open-source. If this was to happen, I'd think again about using Ubuntu.

tgalati4 said: I was referring to Debian forcing licensing to Ubuntu which forces licensing to Mint--nobody wins in this situation. It's not likely to happen, but licensing of repositories does bring up some interesting dilemmas in the FOSS community.

This may come off as a rather abrasive comment, but I would love nothing more than to see Debian license their repos to Ubuntu and Ubuntu only if Ubuntu pulls this stunt with Mint. I'm sorry, but I'm the guy who thinks the only fair response when you get punched is to punch back. Canonical has been making a growing list of (in my opinion) bad decisions lately, which has resulted in me quietly using another distro altogether, but something like this will firmly remove my ability to recommend this distro.

I've always kind of raised an eyebrow at LMDE, though... Part of me wondered if it was to have a hot-spare backup plan in case something took a nose dive.

I also have to really commend Clem on his response. He's very collected and calm about it, even though this could be a pretty serious threat to Mint in its current standing. In fact with Cinnamon 2.0 being on the radar for LMDE (if it hasn't been pushed already) this alone is enough of a reason for me to fire it up again and see how things play out.

Anyway, just my 2c. I'm sure others may disagree but in the name of keeping the open source spirit, do I dare say, human... this is a pretty concerning move.

Yes, that is basically the Mexican Standoff scenario that I referring to. Clem and LMDE made a lot of changes requested by the community to the base Ubuntu distribution--things that you would normally "undo" to Ubuntu as soon as you installed it. Less work and more satisfaction with how the system works. Don't like the close buttons on the left side, no problem. Don't like the fact that Control-Alt-Backspace was turned off, no problem. Don't like Unity, no problem. Clem provided out-of-the-box distros that took Ubuntu and tweaked them the way most folks do anyway. It's a lot work and becoming more difficult as the frameworks become more Canonical-centric. So I see the move to straight Debian for LMDE in the near future. And Clem is a master at diplomacy.

What do you mean: "most folks do anyway?" You do not speak for me, so do not claim that you do. I become very suspicious of anyone who is talking about any subject who claims to know what "most folks " want. It is an indication that they are trying give their opinions an authority that is lacking.

Our views should be able to stand on their own feet and then they can be either accepted or rejected.

Regards.

[COLOR=#000000]Kaijday: [/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]Linux is about open-source. I use it because its community-driven and open-source. If this was to happen, I'd think again about using Ubuntu.[/COLOR]

Ubuntu has multiple licenses, so the terms of the licenses must be followed.

I don't really see an issue here, of course Canonical won't 'sponsor' it's competitors by delivering server capacity and bandwidth. Clem should be proud of what he has achieved with Mint, he's now considered a competitor by Canonical :D

But IMHO using Debian as a base, became a lot more interesting when Valve decided to use Debian over Ubuntu for their SteamOS. Now one can speculate over the reasons that lead to this decision, because on Steams official website they still recommend Ubuntu when running the client, so Ubuntu would have been the obvious choice.

In the end, the best solution for Mint might be to just recompile the Ubuntu FOSS source and host their own binaries on their own servers. This is the approach CentOS takes with RHEL. Red Hat's source is on its public servers. CentOS removes Red Hat branding, trademarks, etc., rebuilds the packages, and hosts it all in their own repositories. That would also give Mint more flexibility if/when it decides to move from Ubuntu to another base.

It's interesting, and perhaps relevant, that this has surfaced now, as Canonical targets phones and tablets. That effort could, in fact, prompt them to create, or license from others, the same kind of binary blobs that we see today in the Nvidia/AMD proprietry drivers. It would not be strange to need a bit of binary magic to get a specific device to work well with Ubuntu. If that's the case, then Canonical would not -- perhaps could not -- put those binaries on their public servers. The solution, though, would seem to be just that: Don't put binaries you don't want the rest of the world to get on your public servers.

Hosting binaries on a public servers is something of a Linux tradition but it is not required by the licensing. Like Canonical's unilateral move to Mir, selling server access via license fees would anger many people who attach as much importance to FOSS culture as they do to the licensing requirements. Culture, though, is impromptu and very fluid. As long as Canonical abides by FOSS licensing requirements, they are as much a part of FOSS culture as anyone else, no matter how much that upsets people who see themselves as setting the standards for that culture. When balancing generating anger among FOSS ideologues against a chance to finally make a profit, I'd bet on Canonical taking the second option.

Canonical, in theory, could also adopt the approach Red Hat uses for RHEL updating: Binary updates come via an update application available to registered users.