request to move the Canonical IP policy web page

[Charles Profitt]

tuSee my replies in-line:un

---- On Wed, 22 Jul 2015 05:00:55 -0700 Jonathan Riddell <jr at jriddell.org> wrote ---- 

I'd like to request that the Community Council moves the Canonical IP 
policy off the Ubuntu website. 
http://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/intellectual-property-policy 
 
It was revealed last week that is policy breached the GPL and still 
leaves open numerous gaps in the ability of people to freely share, 
copy and modify Ubuntu. It is hurting the reputation of Ubuntu as a 
welcoming and functional free software project that respects the 
licence of the upstreams we depend on. For example: 
 
For example Bradley Khun says 
"Their policy, as currently drafted, is rather obviously designed to 
convince people it's easier to buy a license from Canonical, Ltd. than 
to figure out how to engage in normal Free Software redistribution 
behaviours for a distribution." 
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2950117/opensource-subnet/open-source-experts-sound-off-on-canonicals-ubuntu-ip-policy-reaching-gpl-compliance.html 
 
While former tech board member Matthew Gattet blogs 
"explanation of why you shouldn't ship container images based on Ubuntu" 
http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/36312.html 
 
I've tried explaining numerous times over the last week that 
Canonical's IP policy is no more relevant to Ubuntu than KDE's policy 
or Microsoft's because of course we follow the Ubuntu licence policy 
in everything we allow into the archive and the image we create. 
http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu/licensing 

I am not sure I can agree with all the assumptions and assertions above, but I do agree that the current policy is not as clear as I would like to see it. I do have questions about how the Ubuntu License Policy [1], the CLA [2] and the current IP Policy [3] line up with regards to encouraging a healthy developer community.

But while Canonical's policy is on our website people get 
understandably confused and advise people not to use Ubuntu or take 
part in contributing to it. 
 
So will the CC get this removed from our website promptly? 
 
I have urged the Community Council to proactively seek feedback from all flavors on the current policy so that that information can be passed on to Canonical. From my personal standpoint I would rather put energy in to requesting a clarification of the policy as I am not sure moving the policy truly has any impact on the situation. To help me understand your point of view what do you think would be accomplished by moving the policy to a canonical.com URL?

Thanks,

Charles
 
[1] - http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu/licensing
[2] - http://www.ubuntu.com/legal/contributors
[3] - http://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/intellectual-property-policy


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