Earlier quoted context omitted.
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-f…
> 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 impl…
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.