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“Remove occurrences of the short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical”

anonscm.debian.org

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Re: “Remove occurrences of the short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical”

#21

Post by stolio »

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.

[0] - http://www.ubuntu.com/

[1] - http://www.ubuntu.com/about/

[2] - http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu

[3] - http://www.crunchbang.com

[4] - http://crunchbang.org/about/

Re: “Remove occurrences of the short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical”

#22

Post by Flimm »

hyperion2010 wrote: post #16
comice wrote: post #14

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." http://www.canonical.com/intellectual-property-policy

Except that policies like that are completely meaningless in the face of the law. They are like the rules you used to make up as a kid.

You have to enforce your trademark to keep it. It's one of the crucial differences between it and copyright or patents.

mikeash: good point.

Re: “Remove occurrences of the short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical”

#23

Post by glimmung »

hyperion2010 wrote: post #16
comice wrote: post #14

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." http://www.canonical.com/intellectual-property-policy

Except that policies like that are completely meaningless in the face of the law. They are like the rules you used to make up as a kid.

Just so - but /pretending/ to have such a right of veto speaks volumes about their approach.

It respects neither the letter not the spirit of the law, and it makes Canonical look thuggish and crass.

If they want to protect their brand, they could pay a little more attention to the reputational risks of their own behaviour.

Re: “Remove occurrences of the short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical”

#24

Post by jamesbritt »

comice wrote: post #14

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." http://www.canonical.com/intellectual-property-policy

... what they deem acceptable and what they don't.

Isn't law what decides these things? Canonical may be full of hopes and dreams about how they prefer people to behave, but they don't make the laws.

Re: “Remove occurrences of the short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical”

#25

Post by sp332 »

Flimm wrote: post #18
Karunamon wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Petty as all heck on the part of Canonical, I agree.

It doesn't matter, trademark law requires you to pro-actively prosecute violators if you want to keep your trademark. Although I still wish Canonical was more transparent about who gets to use its trademarks and who doesn't: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-community/+bug/394328 sp332: You're right, although it's not clear to me that this definitely is not a violation. I hope it isn't for the sake of free speech.

It doesn't require you to threaten people who don't violate your trademark, but they did anyway.

Re: “Remove occurrences of the short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical”

#26

Post by Flimm »

stolio wrote: post #21

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 pro…

They do include Debian in their about page: http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu

Futhermore, you missed the "Ubuntu and Debian" page, which is only a two links away from the home page: http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu/ubuntu-and-debian

Re: “Remove occurrences of the short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical”

#29

Post by mikeash »

Flimm wrote: post #22
hyperion2010 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that policies like that are completely meaningless in the face of the law. They are like the rules you used to make up as a kid.

You have to enforce your trademark to keep it. It's one of the crucial differences between it and copyright or patents. mikeash: good point.

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.

Re: “Remove occurrences of the short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical”

#30

Post by joeyh »

tedivm wrote: post #13

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…

Just to be clear, Debian didn't do this, I did.

And only, so far in one package, which can be used to mirror Debian or various of its derivatives.

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