So Canonical started abusing trademark law to silence critics, by claiming they could only use the name Ubuntu with permission and in specific contexts. Debian, being the distro of freedom, is preemptively removing the trademarked name in order to make it impossible for Canonical to do the same to them.
While it is extremely unlikely that Canonical ever would, the point stands that they've done this at least once to others. By taking this action Debian is protecting their users from what they perceive as an IP threat.
While it may seem a little silly, I am very glad they're doing this if only because it's drawing attention to how far Canonical has gone with some of their whacky and controlling decisions.
Now there's an interesting question. IANAL, but here's what I understand the law to be, from years doing small business and startup stuff. It would be really nice if a lawyer or two could read through and comment....
Here's how I understand Canadian trademark law. There will be commonalities and important differences with other jurisdictions.
In Canada, one cannot trade mark an existing dictionary word. One can trademark a representation of a word. Canonical being a dictionary word, it cannot be trademarked in Canada - but particular combinations of colour, font, background, images could be trademarked.
Ubuntu is also a dictionary word - just not in an English or French dictionary, the ones best known to CIPO (Canadian Intellectual Property Office) and its associated bits of the government.
So theoretically, one cannot trademark Ubuntu, the word. There are Canadian trademarks for representations of the word, but they have nothing to do with computers and Canonical.
Having said that, "novel" combinations of ordinary dictionary words can be trademarked. I never bothered to registered "EdgeKeep" and "Securing the Edge", but I marked them as trademarks - (TM) instead of (R) - everywhere I used them. Had there ever been a dispute, precedent would have been on my side, but I could have lost to deep pockets.
For example, Office cannot be trademarked as just a word, in most jurisdictions most of the time, but Microsoft Office can be.
My understanding is that some jurisdictions limit the dictionary word restriction to specific languages, but whether this is de jure or de facto (by law or by convention), I do not know.
So this gets complicated really quickly, because ubuntu and canonical are just words, Ubuntu and Canonical refer to specific products and companies, the U&C terms may be trademarkable in some jurisdictions but not all, and, in any case...
...if one needs to refer to Canonical the company, then one may, despite that word being potentially trademarked in one or more jurisdictions. Whether one may make as liberal reference to the products of that company is another question.
But IANAL, and even if I was, it might not matter until a judge spoke on this particular question, or a relevantly similar one.
Fun, eh?
PS I really, really like the idea of using "RestrictedDerivativeBy<insertAdjectiveHere>Company" instead of Ubuntu or Canonical, because it makes the point so much better in a sarcastic and humourous way. It makes all of the above moot, but when did mootness ever stop a good debate? :->
I guess it's getting time to move upstream. Which is fine, I've never given a dime to Canonical, they can do what they want. But it's too bad, they were one of the best things to happen to Linux.
Thanks for the context. I used to use Ubuntu and found this feature to be nonsense. Who would come up with this idea? Let's make money by sending peoples searches to Amazon whenever they search for a file on their PC. Of course when I can't find my file, I'd love and expect the convenience to... get it on Amazon?!
I take it the Debian derivative from Canonical that cannot be named is sort of like a Prominent North American Enterprise Linux Vendor[0] for the average user?
I'm curious if there's some sort of backstory to this.
Thanks. I'm not a fan of the whole Unity Amazon integration deal myself, but I think there's a clear difference between a site critical of Ubuntu using their name in the domain and their logo in the header image versus a passing remark in documentation or code.
Mind you, I think the original case was a clear attempt at abuse of trademark law against legitimate criticism. I do feel, however, that the distro-that-can't-be-named remark sounds petty. If they want to avoid mentioning Ubuntu they could just say something like "Debian derivatives."
> there's a clear difference between a site critical of Ubuntu using their name in the domain and their logo in the header image versus a passing remark in documentation or code.
IANAL, but as far as I understand US law (it's crazy, but everybody needs to learn it nowadays), the first use is explicitly permitted, while a passing citation in documentation is a more nebulous issue.
I'm very surprised by your statement. It would seem to me to be the opposite way round. Surely a passing a citation is fine, it's using someone's trademark in your branding (and a domain name and logo is arguably branding) that's the nebulous issue? Could you point out to me where I could learn about US law that would teach me this counter-intuitive reasoning?
First, it's not Debian derivatives. It's a specific derivative that, unfortunately, can not be named.
Then, It is a bit paranoid, but Debian people work very har to clear their distro from any IP risk, and writting down the name of that distro that can not be named is now a risk.
Canonical has been kind enough to not include the name "Debian" on their Debian derivative's front[0] or about[1] pages. It finally shows up in the about - about [short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical] page. [2]
Compare this to Crunchbang - another Debian derivative that many Ubuntu users have fled to - their homepage includes the word Debian 6 times.[3] On their about page a link to Debian using the proper "Debian GNU/Linux" name is their first order of business.[4] I'm a Debian user and I must say much respect to Crunchbang for making the effort.
ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu is literally link number two above, I realize it's a bit obfuscated
The point I was making is how deeply the connection to Debian is buried on the ubuntu.com site and contrasting it to Crunchbang's approach which is to give back mindshare
As for your two links point, the fastest path I can find is 3:
3 clicks, each link with it's own level of prominence. It's safe to say the Debian connection isn't featured for the average user. And I would imagine well over half the website is available within 3 three clicks of the homepage, I have half a mind to crawl it to find out...
EDIT: I looked again and I can't find the word "Debian" at http://www.ubuntu.com/about/, so either my search feature is broken or it's not there
> The point I was making is how deeply the connection to Debian is buried on the ubuntu.com site and contrasting it to Crunchbang's approach which is to give back mindshare
I accept that point.
(TBH, I shouldn't have bothered with my previous comment, because it was just pedantic).
In my mind, Ubuntu is competing (or at least trying to compete) with Google, Microsoft and Apple. They can't afford to waste valuable front page space on things that would only interest people like us. I think that's perfectly understandable. They still have an Ubuntu and Debian page for those who care. If sharing credit is important to you, than by all means go with something like Crunchbang.
I'm no Canonical apologist, but they do have a "intellectual property" document and are quite clear about what they deem acceptable and what they don't.
They very specifically say you need permission in domains:
"You will require Canonical’s permission to use ... any Trademark in a domain name or URL or for merchandising purposes."
Well, the original problem wasn't ubuntusucks.com, but fixubuntu.com with the Ubuntu logo. One could make the argument that those two things combined without a clear disclaimer at the very least could be an issue.
I do think Canonical's approach was far too heavy-handed, but this case is nothing like ubuntusucks.com (on multiple levels =)).
I am of course not referring to this particular instance, but posing a counterexample to the overly broad language in their intellectual property policy.
Meaningless in the face of the law doesn't mean it's meaningless.
It describes under what circumstances they'll send threatening letters and otherwise stamp their feet. Some people are intimidated by that kind of thing. And it can certainly cost you some real time and money dealing with it, and they have more than you.
Yes, but enforcement is only required to keep it when people are actually violating it. I'm no lawyer, but it looks to me that the "Fix Ubuntu" web site falls clearly under nominative fair use of the trademark, which is when you use a trademark to actually refer to the original product.
I don't really see how Canonical can take away the right to use a trademark nominatively[1], as provided by law, just by declaring your rights to be gone in a policy.
They can't. OTOH, limitations on exclusive rights in trademarks (or any other form of IP) vary a lot by jurisdiction, and within a jurisdiction over time; its fairly common for organizations to state policies where the domain of things for which permission is stated to be required overlaps the area of limitations on the right in question; to the extent those overlap, the stated policy has no effect, it only has effect in the intersection of the area where the company asserts a restriction and the area where local law gives the company control.
I'm pretty radical when it comes to "intellectual property". As far as I'm concerned copyright and patents are both a matter of appropriating centuries of collective public property. Nobody invents anything from scratch.
But I don't see anything wrong with protecting a trademark, within reason.
Is obviously bollocks though as by that reading you couldn't have an article about Ubuntu with Ubuntu in the headline without permission if you used article headlines in your sites URLs like every online magazine ever does.
I'm going to assume you get written permission from the NFL every time you use your DVR, have some friends over to watch the game, or talk about the game with your friends and coworkers.
This is definitely a horrible move from Canonical, but I imagine they are simply following their legal counsel. In general terms, you have to prosecute violators of your trademark if you want to keep your trademark (unlike copyright or patents).
In this case, they're probably making things worse for themselves overall, but I wish people would take the complexities of trademark law in account before accusing them of censorship.
IANAL, but a domain name is more than just a reference to a product. ICANN gives trademark holders additional privileges when it comes to domain names.
> Complaints regarding trademark infringement due to website content and domain names are outside of ICANN's scope and authority.
The only case where ICANN Has anything to say is in a case of domain squatting, which this isn't: although Canonical has a trademark interest in "Ubuntu", there's no violation since it's being used nominatively,and it's not being used in bad faith. (Search for UDRP for more information on this policy).
Yes. Debian has its own restrictions on one of its own logos. See the terms on their restricted use logo on their Logos page[1]; they reserve the right to assert copyright privilege in the same way.
I clicked on your link, and it turns out that Debian have two logos: an open use one, and a restricted one. The one you probably know and love is actually the open use one, I've never seen the restricted one before.
(BTW, copyright and trademarks are very different things, be careful with your terminology.)
Yes, I said 'restricted use logo' above; I wasn't talking about the open use one. My point is that Debian, like Canonical, may assert their intellectual property rights for whatever purposes they see fit. Some folks (not necessarily you) are confusing "can they" with "should they" w.r.t. Canonical.
You're right that copyright and trademark law are two different things. That said, the word "trademark" occurs on that page only in the footer, applied to the name Debian. Nowhere (on that page at least) are the images asserted as trademarks, whereas there's a prominent copyright notice near each logo. I suppose the copyright could be read to apply to the license text and not to the logo, although that would be odd, and inconsistent with the explicit copyright wording of the open use logo.
Read the letter published by Ars[1], they refer not only to the logo but to the "Ubuntu word" (trademark of Canonical) and "to use the Ubuntu trademarks and Ubuntu word in a domain name would require approval from Canonical".
It was very polite, and props to them for that. But that doesn't mean there were no threats.
to use the Ubuntu trademarks and Ubuntu word in a domain name would require approval from Canonical... Unfortunately, in this instance we cannot give you permission to use Ubuntu trademarks...
This has a big "OR ELSE" implicit in it. Requiring means enforcing.
While it is extremely unlikely that Canonical ever would, the point stands that they've done this at least once to others. By taking this action Debian is protecting their users from what they perceive as an IP threat.
While it may seem a little silly, I am very glad they're doing this if only because it's drawing attention to how far Canonical has gone with some of their whacky and controlling decisions.
Context, for those who want it- http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/canoni...