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“@ubuntu asks us to bill you 1e-2e per month for each VPS/PCI/PCC/SD”
- Nyr 10y agoNot the first time which Canonical attempts to abuse their trademark... http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/canonical-abused-trademark-law-to-target-a-site-critical-of-ubuntu-privacy/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/canoni...
- inputjoker 10y agoI am hoping this to have a negative impact on ubuntu by removing ubuntu from as many cloud services as possible. We have better alternatives, but due to large number of community solutions makes ubuntu the common choice.
- vegabook 10y agoHow are there better alternatives if they don't have Ubuntu's "large number of community solutions"? Are we talking "better" for Unix/Linux old-guard purist-reactionaries? Or for people who want a server that just works? I personally just stick to Ubuntu because, on most of the software I download, there are usually explicit setup instructions for Ubuntu, and then "other Linux". Life is too short. Ubuntu is the path of least resistance and let's be honest, it works. By the way, while I'm not sure about this trademark thing, I personally want Canonical to be a profitable and stable company that can continue to invest, and that will be around for a long time. We can't leave all the Linux money to Redhat.
- carc1n0gen 10y agoDEBIAN
- Waterluvian 10y agoWhat damage does it do to have a selection of tools available?
- jhasse 10y agoIt's an advantage if there are more people using the same tool like you. More selection = less people using the same tool.
- Waterluvian 10y agoIt's funny. I agree with that 100%. Especially with programming. My largest argument for a large standard library like python's is that we are at least all using the same tools. But for some reason your suggestion really rubbed me the wrong way. Probably because I use Ubuntu a lot and find tremendous value in it. I'll have to revisit my opinions on the matter.
- alrs 10y agoThis will be great news for Debian. Thank you, Canonical.
- nailer 10y agoI like Debian more than Ubuntu too, bu I think it's more likely Ubuntu gets a CentOS (same tech, no logos) equivalant.
- alrs 10y agoLikely enough, and depressing to think of all the effort that could go into Debian instead getting spent gluing Ubuntu back together again.
- rodgerd 10y agoIf you think that, you haven't been paying attention to the long, torturous saga of Canonical arguing that if you have the name "Ubuntu" in the name of the package, the Debian-formatted release notes, or pretty much anything, you need to beg them for trademark permission. Matthew Garrett has been chasing this around[1]. [1] http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/35969.html http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/35969.html
- athenot 10y agoThe free version could just be the word "Ubuntu" in a different language. :)
- tripletmass 10y agoYes, let's defer to Kenyan popular opinion on what they would call something they're billed forward for calling its name. Points for guessing it rhymes with luche?
- mhurron 10y ago> Ubuntu gets a CentOS (same tech, no logos) equivalant. Wouldn't that be Debian?
- mirimir 10y agoI kept rereading "1e-2e per month" in the title, trying to see it as "1e-2 EUR per month", because 1 EUR per month is just implausible for VPS.
- qu4z-2 10y agoI'm really not sure 1e-2 EUR per month is more plausible, though.
- vrutkovs 10y agoIt seems the already charge Dreamhost: https://twitter.com/cleverdevil/status/744622945096503297 https://twitter.com/cleverdevil/status/744622945096503297
- dsr_ 10y agoPerhaps European trademark laws are different from the US -- but here, using a trademark to refer directly to the thing which is the subject of the trademark is always a legal use. That's why the Pepsi Challenge can name Coca-Cola directly as the product that people prefer. Certainly Coca-Cola would sue them if they had any legal grounds to stand on, and they do not. Is OVH using "Ubuntu" to refer to something other than an Ubuntu-sourced distro that they are making available on their servers? Are they substituting an OVH-tweaked derivative and calling it Ubuntu? If so, then Canonical has a plausible case. If not, it's an overanxious, overpaid and undereducated lawyer's assistant writing letters by the hour.
- wodenokoto 10y agoI don't know trademark laws very well, but something like Pepsi mentioning Coca-Cola in their ads is pretty much unheard if where I live.
- pbarnes_1 10y agoCompetitive advertising by name is illegal in most countries. The US is one exception.
- LeifCarrotson 10y agoI found the recent Ford/Chevy "comparison" ad interesting in this regard. In it, they never mentioned the word "Ford", they just had "a competitor's truck", with clearly visible logos. More than most ads I have seen, they very intentionally avoided mentioning what everyone could clearly see. I wonder if this was done so they could sell the ad internationally: https://youtu.be/BTm2F4ysQrE https://youtu.be/BTm2F4ysQrE As an aside, I think it's a little absurd that they're trying to sell their old-tech steel truck as superior to Ford's new aluminum setup. I wonder how they will pivot their pitch in coming years when they can no longer compete with Ford and Dodge aluminum trucks that don't rust, are faster, lighter, and more fuel efficient...
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago>Competitive advertising by name is illegal in most countries. // Can you give examples? Referring to a product's origin by using the Trademark is allowed in the UK and under the harmonisation treaties I thought such big issues had been evened out across EU states trademark regulations (so that community trademarks can work).
- chmike 10y agoUbuntu doesn't support remote desktop beside ssh. There is really no benefit in using Ubuntu as remote server compared to Debian. I would advise to drop support of Ubuntu. Î'm at OVH and use Debian. I´m so far happy with that. Îm switching from Ubuntu to Debian because of the remote display problem. I can't live without it.
- danpalmer 10y agoThat's not entirely true, Ubuntu is much more than its desktop environment. I like it because it offers the trade-off of recency and stability that suits me - relative stability with 6 month update cycle. Debian is either more stable on a ~2-3 year cycle (currently jessie), or less stable on an ongoing release (sid).
- chmike 10y agoDownvoting should be used when the comment is inappropriate for Hacker News, not because you don't like the comment.
- pmontra 10y ago@OVH don't pay. I for sure won't pay you the extra, I'll switch to another distro. Furthermore I'll prove in a court the legality of their claim.
- pmontra 10y ago> I'll prove Badly worded, sorry: I was inviting OVH to go to a court and check if Canonical has any right asking them a license. I confirm that I'll move to another distro if OVH charges me more because of this.
- pfg 10y agoThey don't have the right to ask them to pay for the software, but they have a right to dictate how their trademark can be used. They're free to distribute their software under a different name. They could also deliver an unmodified copy of Ubuntu to their customers, which would allow them to keep using the Ubuntu trademark.
- tacone 10y agoJust remove the trademark and name it "Debian derivative". Make sure to link the name to the official website so people can understand. This will lower Ubuntu usage a lot, still people will be able to install it if they wish.
- comice 10y agoA rather vague claim, needs more details. Canonical allow the use of the Ubuntu trademark to describe unmodified versions of Ubuntu (in this case, I'd guess it's their cloud server images) If you modify the images, you can still redistribute them, you just can't call it Ubuntu. This has some problems, some of which Matthew Garrett has explored in more details. But generally, imo, it's a useful tool to prevent clueless vps/cloud providers modifying Ubuntu images and breaking them and tarnishing the Ubuntu name (which has happened repeatedly, usually breaking security).
- grizzles 10y agoSounds like a good open source business model to me. If OVH were distributing it exactly the way UbuntuCo was distributing it, eg. as an ISO on a http/ftp site then I don't think UbuntuCo would have the legal footing to do this. But by acting as a VAR hosting provider, with provisioning guis, etc. then OVH have changed the product, and can no longer be a free rider. Since it's not exactly Ubuntu anymore, it stands to reason that hosting companies should pay to license the trademark Ubuntu or rebrand it like the CentOS guys did.
- eropple 10y agoIt's not that they're a hosting provider, it's that they package a different kernel (which makes it vary from the actual, Canonical-provided product).
- nmstoker 10y agoMight it be better to hear Canonical's position before we all leap into how awful this is? Is there any particular policy they're on record as applying here?
- andmarios 10y agoMaybe they could switch to Mandriva Linux. :-k
- mark_l_watson 10y agoI don't understand this. AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure all list Ubuntu as a VPS OS option. I run Ubuntu on all three of my Linux laptops and usually on leased servers and VPSs, and I support them with donations, but if this tweet from OVH is legitimate, then someone at Conanical needs to do some back peddling on this.
- clopez 10y ago""" They do the same to us at @DreamHost and I’ve always felt it was inappropriate. """ https://twitter.com/cleverdevil/status/744622945096503297 https://twitter.com/cleverdevil/status/744622945096503297
- icebraining 10y agoApparently not to enough to stop using the name. Guess it has some value, after all.
- rgbrenner 10y agoSeveral people have pointed out that OVH modifies Ubuntu (w/ a custom kernel to support their hardware). If that's true, they shouldn't be surprised Ubuntu wants a license fee... it says so in their trademark policy: - You can make changes to Ubuntu for your own personal use or for your organisation’s own internal use. - You can redistribute Ubuntu, but only where there has been no modification to it. - Any redistribution of modified versions of Ubuntu must be approved, certified or provided by Canonical if you are going to associate it with the Trademarks. Otherwise you must remove and replace the Trademarks and will need to recompile the source code to create your own binaries. This does not affect your rights under any open source licence applicable to any of the components of Ubuntu. If you need us to approve, certify or provide modified versions for redistribution you will require a licence agreement from Canonical, for which you may be required to pay. http://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/intellectual-property-policy http://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/intellectual-...
- nfm 10y agoThe rationale is also explained in the policy: Ubuntu is a trusted open source platform. To maintain that trust we need to manage the use of Ubuntu and the components within it very carefully. This way, when people use Ubuntu, or anything bearing the Ubuntu brand, they can be assured that it will meet the standards they expect.
- davb 10y agoI'm not sure how they achieve the goal of maintaining trust by simply charging a licencing fee for the brand. Unless they review and certify every modified build, this seems like a simple dual licencing model under the veil of making sure customers aren't misled.
- xupybd 10y agoGiven the price, I'd say this is more about entering a commercial agreement. Once they do that they can have influence on the custom version. To use that influence will, no doubt, cost money.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- tamana 10y agoMozilla doesn't let people distribute modified copies of "Firefox" either. That's why Iceweasel was invented.
- vrutkovs 10y agoThis situation has been resolved recently - https://glandium.org/blog/?p=3622 https://glandium.org/blog/?p=3622
- SXX 10y agoMozilla just agreed on exception for Debian only.
- jbicha 10y agoNo, it can't be a Debian-specific exception or it would violate #8 of the Debian Free Software Guidelines: https://www.debian.org/social_contract https://www.debian.org/social_contract
- vacri 10y agoNot at all - you can extract debian-firefox from debian and use it elsewhere, calling it firefox. The exception wasn't "must be in debian system" as per #8, but "debian has a proven track record of keeping FF as a quality release, so we'll allow their modifications to bear the name".
- hartator 10y agohttps://mobile.twitter.com/Hartator/status/744662021598175233 https://mobile.twitter.com/Hartator/status/74466202159817523... Asked if removing the option to have the ovh modified version of Ubuntu will be enough. I always have random bugs when I was using it anyway. And it's pretty hard to debug.
- davb 10y agoHow do various open source licences treat naming rights for derivative works?
- sangnoir 10y agoMozilla mandates that you call it anything you like, but not "Firefox"
- userbinator 10y agoCall it OVHbuntu and be done with it.
- YokoZar 10y agoCanonical owns the -buntu suffix too, so this isn't quite enough.
- vacri 10y agoUbuntu: €1-2/month from tweet RHEL: £19.99/month (€25.64) from OVH UK page People don't seem to complain that RHEL asks for money.
- joepie91_ 10y agoProbably because RHEL actually provides support for that money - otherwise, you use CentOS - whereas Ubuntu seems to be demanding money for use of the name while the customer gets nothing in return.
- corobo 10y agoIf OVH backs down and uses the bog standard Ubuntu release, the customer gets a much better and much more secure server to play with. I'm pretty sure I've come across your name before and seem to associate you with a security focus. Wouldn't it be better to have the fully maintained Ubuntu rather than OVH's un-maintained custom build?
- OlesVanHerman 10y ago1) The issue is about using the trademark. You can't use the trademark "Ubuntu" on your website without being a partner. To become a partner you have to pay. For Ovh it's 1Me/year. 2) Once you are a partner, you are on this page: http://partners.ubuntu.com/find-a-partner http://partners.ubuntu.com/find-a-partner Once you are a partner, you can copy the images and use them to setup automaticly a VM with saying "It's Ubuntu". 3) If not, you can't copy the images. You can't annonce you propose Ubuntu. Your customers are still able to download the images from Ubuntu.com and setup a VM with. But you can't do that for your customers since you can't use the trademark. 4) Google didn't propose Ubuntu during the years. Then they pay. The same for all others: AWS, Dreamhost, Azure, etc Now, Ovh and Digital Ocean have to decide if they will pay or not. and in 3 months or more, they will contact the others. 5) Ovh has no issue to be a partner and sponsor Ubuntu like they sponsor Letsencrypt, Grsecurity, and others. Just in this case, we don't talk about helping Ubuntu. It's just business. 1Me/year it's business. That's why Ovh asks theirs customers if they are want to pay or they don't want. There is no additional value. It just allows you to get VM with Ubuntu in 30 seconds like today. If they don't want to pay, the customers will have to download the Ubuntu's image and setup it himself: 9-10 min Or setup Debian, Fedora, OpenSuse or others > 60 distributions Ovh can rename "Ubuntu" to "Freedom" and propose "Freedom" distribution. But they can't announce they propose Ubuntu.
- smartbit 10y agoPerhaps unrelated, a year ago at an Ubuntu event I understood from a Canonical salesperson that they asks a kickback from providers when they advertise with Ubuntu. In London Canonical has an EMEA sales team dedicated to negotiating these kickbacks. In my understanding this business model emerged after the Cloud providers needed patches very fast after Heartbleed [0]. In return for the kickback, Canonical offers fast patches and Hosters/Cloud providers can use the Ubuntu logo. [0] https://www.openssl.org/news/secadv/20140407.txt https://www.openssl.org/news/secadv/20140407.txt
- Shorel 10y agoI would prefer that OVH shipped Ubuntu with the right kernel instead of the very outdated one they use. In that case, they don't need to pay Canonical anything, and the OVH users would have a better OS to install.