Hi all!
Casting a somewhat wide net with this email since this is an issue that
potentially affects a lot of projects related to Ubuntu, including
projects developed by Canonical staff and other notable community
members.
In the past, Canonical has appeared to allow, and the Ubuntu community
has actively encouraged, the distribution of unofficial modified
versions of Ubuntu typically known as "remixes". These remixes
typically use the official Ubuntu repositories, but add additional
third-party repos provided by the remix creator, either self-hosted
repos or Personal Package Archives (PPAs). While the remixes do clarify
their status by calling themselves remixes, they typically use Ubuntu's
official (trademarked) branding in one form or another. These remixes
are not, and do not pretend to be, official Ubuntu images, but they are
a valuable part of the Ubuntu community, as remixes allow people to do
things with Ubuntu that haven't been or can't be done with official
Ubuntu images (i.e. providing Ubuntu with a pre-configured SwayWM
experience), and at least in recent times they have acted as the
gateway for a developer to create a new Ubuntu flavor (with developers
distributing their variants of Ubuntu as remixes for a development
cycle or several, then bringing those remixes into compliance with
Ubuntu's flavor requirements before being officially accepted as a new
flavor).
While it's the understanding of the Ubuntu community at large that
remixes that operate this way are perfectly fine (to the point where at
least one individual who is now a flavor lead referred to "remix
codename rules" which AFAIK don't actually exist [1]), there doesn't
appear to be any well-documented rules that explain that this is how
things work. To the contrary, Canonical's intellectual property rights
policy [2] suggests that the entire way in which remixes work is, at
best, a gray area, and at worst, completely disallowed. One particularly
worrying paragraph reads:
> 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. For further information, please contact us
> (as set out below).
This is potentially a problem for some existing Ubuntu remixes, such as
Ubuntu Sway Remix [3], Ubuntu Asahi [4], Ubuntu DDE [5], and maybe even
the Ubuntu concept images for ARM hardware [6] [7]. It's unclear if any
of these projects are allowed to exist with their current name and
branding in light of the IP policy. At the same time, it seems very
unlikely that it is Canonical's wish to make any of these projects
cease operation or force them to entirely rebrand, especially since the
concept images and Ubuntu Asahi are both being worked on (at least in
part) by Canonical employees.
Despite the fact that within the Ubuntu project, the legitimacy and
acceptance of Ubuntu remixes is well-known, it is not so well-known
outside of the Ubuntu project. For instance, Qubes OS (a
security-focused, virtual-machine-centric Linux distribution I
regularly use and contribute to) currently offers support for
lightweight Ubuntu virtual machines tailored to integrate with Qubes as
a whole, but they do not distribute these virtual machines to end-users
directly, for fear of legal action being taken against them by
Canonical. Instead, they offer support for Ubuntu in their build
software, and require that users who want to use Ubuntu on Qubes OS
build the Ubuntu VMs themselves, which the IP policy explicitly allows
when it says "You can make changes to Ubuntu for your own personal use
or for your organisation's own internal use." This is a legally safe
strategy for the Qubes development team to use, but it dramatically
reduces the accessibility of Ubuntu on the Qubes OS platform, as the
Qubes build software is very complicated and requires a user to be very
technically skilled to make use of it. [8] I would go so far as to say
this restriction makes it impossible for anyone except Qubes OS
developers and a very small group of enthusiasts to have a decent
Ubuntu experience on Qubes OS.
The VMs built by Qubes OS's build software are, in essence, exactly
what most remixes today are - they use the Ubuntu repositories at their
core, they have a third party repo enabled that provides extra
capabilities and some software from that repo installed, and that's it.
It seems like Qubes OS should be able to distribute Ubuntu virtual
machines directly if they make it clear that their images are not
official Canonical products (for instance, by naming the OS in their
images "Ubuntu Qubes Remix" or similar). That would resolve the
current usability issues; no one would get confused into thinking
Canonical or the Ubuntu community offered official support for the
images, Qubes users could take advantage of the power and flexibility
of Ubuntu while still getting the security benefits of the Qubes
platform, and everyone would be happy. These images would not be able
to eventually become Ubuntu flavors, as the Qubes development team
needs to be able to release security updates to their packages packages
very quickly to deliver the experience they wish to offer their users,
but I don't see any reason why a remix having to stay a remix should
disqualify it from calling itself a remix.
In light of all the above, I would like to request that some official
Canonical-provided documentation clarify that one *can* distribute
modified versions of Ubuntu that retain some of Ubuntu's branding,
provided that these versions of Ubuntu call themselves remixes or
otherwise make it abundantly clear to the end-user that the modified
image is not provided or supported by Canonical or official Ubuntu
support channels. If there are additional restrictions a remix has to
obey, it would be good to clarify those too so that both existing and
new remixes don't run afoul of any rules in their mission to make the
Ubuntu ecosystem even better.
Thanks for your consideration, and have a great day!
--
Aaron Rainbolt
Ubuntu Community Council Member
https://github.com/ArrayBolt3
https://launchpad.net/~arraybolt3
@arraybolt3:ubuntu.com on Matrix, arraybolt3 on Libera and OFTC
[1]
https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/flavour-guidelines-runtu-a-remix-a-flavour-or-a-fraud/11828
[2] https://canonical.com/legal/intellectual-property-policy
[3] https://github.com/Ubuntu-Sway
[4] https://ubuntuasahi.org/
[5] https://ubuntudde.com/
[6]
https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/status-of-ubuntu-support-for-lenovo-thinkpad-x13s/44652
[7] https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-concept-snapdragon-x-elite/48800
[8] https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-builderv2
