Developemnt and use - Training manual

Glen Merrick at903 at chebucto.ns.ca
Sun May 4 01:20:02 UTC 2008


If you take a look around, you can find courses authorized by Ubuntu.
2x 1 week courses to train you to be a "Ubuntu Professional" or
whatever.  Each course is around 2500 dollars plus the cost of the exam.
 And passing this exam will give you a designation you can put on your
CV and business card.

People confuse FREE as in free beer with free when used with Open
Source/GPL.

If you take the profided Ubuntu documentation that is provided and give
it away free, either on CD or even print it up, there should be no issue
with it.

Nether should there be issue if you charge money to train people on how
to use Ubuntu or any other OS.  The philosophy of Ubuntu is to provide
the code and software for free, and require you to document credit where
credit is due if you use their product or code.  How else does
Canonical, who foots the bill for Ubuntu development, make money?  Why,
they sell service contracts for the Ubuntu Desktop and Server.  In fact
I am in the process of purchasing said services in the odd chance I need
 them for a handfull of desktops and servers.

Regards,

Glen Merrick

> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 02 May 2008 11:47:55 -0700
> From: George Farris <farrisg at cc.mala.bc.ca>
> Subject: Re: Developemnt and use - Training manual
> To: Billy Cina <billy.cina at canonical.com>
> Cc: ubuntu-devel-discuss at lists.ubuntu.com,	Torsten Spindler
> 	<torsten at canonical.com>
> Message-ID: <1209754075.18668.9.camel at falcon.cc.mala.bc.ca>
> Content-Type: text/plain
> 
> On Mon, 2008-04-28 at 10:38 +0300, Billy Cina wrote:
>>> Right, so if we want to use the manual in our Community Education course
>>> to introduce and teach Ubuntu Linux while charging the student a fee for
>>> the course, this would be okay?
>>>
>>> Note: these are not degree courses they fall into the same category as
>>> "learn to paint" or "better life through yoga".  Strictly for community
>>> personal interest with charges usually between $50.00 - $199.00
>>>   
>> Non-profit are key words. $50 - $199.00 sounds like profit seeking to me.
>>
>> Billy Cina
> 
> Exactly which brings me back to the original question.  
> 
> It seems a little out of touch with the rest of Ubuntu.  
> 
> If one can take Hardy Heron and use it to present a course on Linux
> while charging for the course, why wouldn't you have the license similar
> for the documents?  Charge for the course (not the material) but use the
> material to refer to in the course.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 02 May 2008 15:31:46 -0400
> From: Blaise Alleyne <balleyne at crucible.net>
> Subject: Re: Developemnt and use - Training manual
> To: George Farris <farrisg at cc.mala.bc.ca>
> Cc: ubuntu-devel-discuss at lists.ubuntu.com,	Torsten Spindler
> 	<torsten at canonical.com>,	Billy Cina <billy.cina at canonical.com>
> Message-ID: <481B6C22.6090808 at crucible.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> 
> (Apologies if I'm repeating myself a bit... a messed up my last post to 
> the list and it broke outside of the thread...)
> 
> George Farris wrote:
>> On Mon, 2008-04-28 at 10:38 +0300, Billy Cina wrote:
>>   
>>>> Right, so if we want to use the manual in our Community Education course
>>>> to introduce and teach Ubuntu Linux while charging the student a fee for
>>>> the course, this would be okay?
>>>>
>>>> Note: these are not degree courses they fall into the same category as
>>>> "learn to paint" or "better life through yoga".  Strictly for community
>>>> personal interest with charges usually between $50.00 - $199.00
>>>>   
>>>>       
>>> Non-profit are key words. $50 - $199.00 sounds like profit seeking to me.
>>>
>>> Billy Cina
>>>     
>> Exactly which brings me back to the original question.  
>>
>> It seems a little out of touch with the rest of Ubuntu.
>>   
> 
> It's not only out of touch with Ubuntu's philosophy [0], but out of 
> touch with open source [1] and free software [2] philosophies... the 
> ability to charge for free software is always protected, free is about 
> freedom not price. And, as I noted before, it's out of touch with the 
> rest of the free culture movement. [3]
> 
> Taking away someone's freedom to profit from their work is.. well, dumb.
>> If one can take Hardy Heron and use it to present a course on Linux
>> while charging for the course, why wouldn't you have the license similar
>> for the documents?  Charge for the course (not the material) but use the
>> material to refer to in the course.
>>   
> 
> There are several other, better, licenses which are in line with 
> Ubuntu's philosophy (i.e. which, if software, would land in the 
> universe, not the multiverse!):
> 
> * CC BY
> * CC BY-SA
> * GNU Free Documentation License
> 
> I don't see why Ubuntu's training material ought to contradict it's 
> commitment to free software and open source software.
> 
> 
> [0] http://www.ubuntu.com/community/ubuntustory/licensing (the software 
> portion retains the right to sell, though documentation is on a 
> case-by-case basis)
> [1] http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd (see the first part of the 
> definition)
> [2] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html
> [3] http://freedomdefined.org/
> 
> 




More information about the Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list