Canonical’s IPRights Policy incompa

[Jonathan Riddell]

> On 04.05.2015 04:48, Benjamin Kerensa wrote:
> > Do we have any documentation of what and what not the CC can take on? Or
> > is the list made up on the fly?
> > 
> > Why can the CC not take on this very important issue but expects somehow
> > a individual contributor can? To me that makes very little sense and
> > some explanation would be great.
> 
> The Community Council oversees community processes and governance in
> general, but is in no position to give legal advise or go to court if
> necessary. That's simply not part of its mission statement and shouldn't
> be in my mind, as almost everybody on the CC is a volunteer in the
> community.

Their first duty should be to prevent anyone making claims which are
against the fundamental principles of the ubuntu community.  Being
free to share and copy our code is fundamental to Ubuntu and every one
of our upstreams.  Claims otherwise do harm our community.

> If anybody has a specific case where their project is hindered or
> blocked, bring it up with Canonical Legal. Mint brought up their case
> and it was resolved to their favour. It's in Ubuntu's interest in
> general, if the trademark can be defended if necessary and the rules are
> not too lax.

As I have said this has been brought up with Canonical on numberous
occations with no change.

I have brought up several specific cases and who knows how many people
have been put off contributing to our community without telling anyone
because they see a community that can't stand up for itself.

Nobody has asked to go to court.  I have asked for the community
council to make a statement that no recompilation of ubuntu binaries
is necessary.  That is simple to do and they are well within their
powers and duties to do so.  This is not a complex legal matter no
much people might like to claim it is.  It has nothing to do with
trademark law.

Jonathan