I think the problem is it doesn't matter how carefully you read the GPL v3, you still can't understand it. The license is complex and inconsistent in important

I think the problem is it doesn't matter how carefully you read the GPL v3, you still can't understand it. The license is complex and inconsistent in important ways and applied mechanically and literally leads to bizarre conclusions (such as that it is incompatible with the BSD-style licenses but not the MIT license). I have discussed this matter both with folks like Richard Fontana (involved in SFLC, general counsel for Red Hat, and one of the drafters of the GPL v3) and Eben Moglen (SFLC, FSF, and one of the drafters of the GPL v3) and their understandings of key provisions was not only different but incompatibly so. Here's the problem: the SFLC's official view, which is also the view of many developers who use the BSD-license, is that the BSD license does not allow a license change on the original code, but only allows restrictions to be placed on new code. Therefore if you write a program and release it under the BSD license, I can change the license to the GPL (any version) when, and only when, I actually make copyright-worthy changes to the code. Anything short of that and I am impermissively sublicensing your code, as prohibited in US copyright law. Now, slowly read the GPL v3, section 7, on additional terms. Section 7 outlines a few areas where additional restrictions are permitted, and also addresses additional permissions. Since the work as a whole must be licensed according to the GPL v3, this would apply to any modules the work is dependent on, by the terms and definitions of the GPL v3, and additional permissions must be removable without changing the code. Earlier drafts allowed these permissions to be removed only when changing code but this was removed in a later draft. The BSD license does not allow this, and therefore it is incompatible. OTOH, the MIT license does allow it and so is compatible. Oops. Except that everyone agrees the licenses are compatible. Moglen says that basically you can claim anything you want but nobody can sue you for it (sorry, I am not betting my house on that). Fontana says that the license was intended to be compatible and therefore must be read to be compatible, that one cannot safely convert BSD files to the GPL without modifying them, and that the GPL v3 should be read to accommodate this restriction. What a mess that opens up. Now we have to read the GPL as explicitly authorizing things it says it does not authorize. So given my time trying to figure the GPL v3 out (and I have slowly read it more than a few times) I will give Ubuntu the benefit of the doubt here. The GPL v2 has problems too, but I would pick the problems of a license which is, perhaps, too simple over one which is undeniably too complex. Now, my reading of the GPL v3 here is that Ubuntu would only possibly be off the hook but every distributor of Ubuntu-certified computers would have to release their keys. Moreover I am not convinced entirely that if a distributor failed to that Ubuntu could not be held accountable. If it's copyright infringement, Ubuntu is a vicarious infringer unless they did everything reasonably within their power to stop it. They have the power to require the vendor to distribute the keys, and they have a financial incentive. That makes them responsible. Worse if they told any distributor "you don't have to distribute your keys" that might make them guilty of Grokster-style contributory infringement. I am not convinced Ubuntu would be safe at all. More likely depending on what was in the agreements, they might be held accountable along with the distributor.