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Canonical have the right to protect their brand. But what Canonical are doing is being so unclear about your obligations around their brand that it's impossible

by mjg59 11y ago

Canonical have the right to protect their brand. But what Canonical are doing is being so unclear about your obligations around their brand that it's impossible to know whether they'd consider a derivative an infringement of their rights. If I release software under a BSD-style license with an additional proviso that you must demonstrate p=np before being able to redistribute it, we'd probably agree that it was non-free. If I release software under a BSD-style license with an additional proviso that you must replace a single file containing my trademark, we'd agree that it was free. Canonical's requirements are somewhere between these two things, but they won't tell us where. If it's impossible to determine whether a requirement is feasible, it's difficult to figure out what your practical ability to make use of those freedoms is.

Mikeb85 11y ago
> But what Canonical are doing is being so unclear about your obligations around their brand that it's impossible to know whether they'd consider a derivative an infringement of their rights. Your responsibility is to abide by the terms of the license, and trademark law. It's not about what Canonical considers an infringement, but what the law considers infringement based on the interpretation of the license you implicitly agreed to and trademark law.
- _delirium 11y ago
  What Canonical considers an infringement is still pretty relevant. Civil law is mainly a tool for resolving disagreements between parties, not a system of abstractly judging the conformance of every action to the (very large) body of law. Therefore the first important step is to be able to understand the viewpoints of each party, which would tell you if there is even a disagreement to begin with. Lawsuits are a last resort for when parties are unable to reach an understanding on their own. Canonical doesn't have the final word on things, but they do have a word on things: they can clarify their own position. If what they claim as trademarks goes beyond what trademark law allows, then it's true that they would be unable to enforce that in court, so it's ultimately not their call. But they could simplify the situation and reduce the risk to all parties of needing to resolve disagreements in court by explicitly stating their position on acceptable uses of their trademark, i.e. what they would not consider to be a violation of their protected interest. This would give downstream users at least a better understanding of Canonical's interpretation, which is key to avoiding expensive lawsuits: if you're using Canonical's trademarks only in ways that Canonical itself considers proper, then there's no disagreement that needs to be resolved in court.
- mjg59 11y ago
  You can read the policy that way. You can also read the policy as imposing additional copyright related restrictions on the code. Most free software licenses permit Canonical to add additional restrictions, so this is something they can do. Your interpretation is the obvious one, but Canonical have repeatedly refused to confirm that it's the correct one. This is the heart of the argument between the FSF and Canonical over whether the policy was GPL compatible or not. If it was merely a restatement of trademark law, it would have been. If it was an additional copyright-based restriction, it wouldn't. As https://www.fsf.org/news/canonical-updated-licensing-terms https://www.fsf.org/news/canonical-updated-licensing-terms shows, Canonical chose to add a "trump clause" rather than clarifying their stance.

by mjg59 11y ago

Mikeb85 11y ago

> But what Canonical are doing is being so unclear about your obligations around their brand that it's impossible to know whether they'd consider a derivative an infringement of their rights. Your responsibility is to abide by the terms of the license, and trademark law. It's not about what Canonical considers an infringement, but what the law considers infringement based on the interpretation of the license you implicitly agreed to and trademark law.

_delirium 11y ago
What Canonical considers an infringement is still pretty relevant. Civil law is mainly a tool for resolving disagreements between parties, not a system of abstractly judging the conformance of every action to the (very large) body of law. Therefore the first important step is to be able to understand the viewpoints of each party, which would tell you if there is even a disagreement to begin with. Lawsuits are a last resort for when parties are unable to reach an understanding on their own. Canonical doesn't have the final word on things, but they do have a word on things: they can clarify their own position. If what they claim as trademarks goes beyond what trademark law allows, then it's true that they would be unable to enforce that in court, so it's ultimately not their call. But they could simplify the situation and reduce the risk to all parties of needing to resolve disagreements in court by explicitly stating their position on acceptable uses of their trademark, i.e. what they would not consider to be a violation of their protected interest. This would give downstream users at least a better understanding of Canonical's interpretation, which is key to avoiding expensive lawsuits: if you're using Canonical's trademarks only in ways that Canonical itself considers proper, then there's no disagreement that needs to be resolved in court.
mjg59 11y ago
You can read the policy that way. You can also read the policy as imposing additional copyright related restrictions on the code. Most free software licenses permit Canonical to add additional restrictions, so this is something they can do. Your interpretation is the obvious one, but Canonical have repeatedly refused to confirm that it's the correct one. This is the heart of the argument between the FSF and Canonical over whether the policy was GPL compatible or not. If it was merely a restatement of trademark law, it would have been. If it was an additional copyright-based restriction, it wouldn't. As https://www.fsf.org/news/canonical-updated-licensing-terms https://www.fsf.org/news/canonical-updated-licensing-terms shows, Canonical chose to add a "trump clause" rather than clarifying their stance.