Canonical Explains Why Linux Mint and All Other Distros Must Sign a License Agreement

Didn't Clement Lefebvre say the same thing about why Linux Mint removed the Mint Constructor.

http://fossforce.com/2014/01/linux-mint-ax-mintconstructor/

The only reason I can find in the entire long winded statement is " To that end it is critical that when people see “Ubuntu”, it adequately represents the software that we all build and stand behind. This is as important to our individual reputations as much as to the reputation of the project as a whole. Trademarks and Copyrights are the legal tools provided to us for safeguarding those reputations,"

But the copyrights involved are open source licenses, most of which explicitly disallow the requirement for a license agreement. And as far as I know, Mint doesn't use the Ubuntu trademarks. So why exactly do they need a license again?

And why only Linux Mint. What about the 100's of other distros that use Ubuntu repos?

Quoting:And why only Linux Mint. What about the 100's of other distros that use Ubuntu repos?

Because Mint is taking over the niche of "easy to use GNU/Linux that you can give to your Grandmother" ever since Canonical started drinking the peyote water.

Exactly, mrider. And the worse that gets, the more egregious Canonical's requirements will get.

I'd say Clem has two options. Set up his own repositories creating by compiling the Ubuntu source (essentially what CentOS and equivalents do with Red Hat) or move to Debian as a base.

And if Canonical doesn't want others using their repositories, they should close them except to paying customers.

Quoting:I'd say Clem has two options. Set up his own repositories creating by compiling the Ubuntu source (essentially what CentOS and equivalents do with Red Hat) or move to Debian as a base.

I think it's going to come to that, and I don't think it's unreasonable for Mint to maintain its own repositories.

If doing all the builds is a problem, Mint could sync with Ubuntu's repository and take the number of Mint users hitting those Ubuntu repos from many to none.

But overall, I think Mint should make the leap and do their own builds. I think that's what Ubuntu does with Debian, too.

This article explains nothing. It's shallow even for Softpedia.

Quoting: This article explains nothing. It's shallow even for Softpedia.

I think that qualifies as "damning with faint criticism" :)

>> But the copyrights involved are open source licenses, most of which explicitly disallow the requirement for a license agreement. And as far as I know, Mint doesn't use the Ubuntu trademarks. So why exactly do they need a license again?

@jdixon, @dark1, @mrider,

GREAT points on this! Further evidence that the Mark$ Evil Empire is striking back with Over-Explanation of its cleverly disguised but impending legal attack FUD. As everyone knows, FUD equals Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. Seems to me that the Evil Empire's "peyote water" FUD is reminiscent of Macro$uck's old FUD tactics, now that the CanUbecomical humpty-dumpties have noticed how successful Mint is!

2c

Why do you folks think there is an LMDE version of Linux Mint? It has been there for a few years and works just fine. I have been running it on a test box for quite a while. Right now it takes some Linux systems experience to install and maintain. If Canonical decides to make life difficult for Clem, they will regret it. Six months later Linux mint will be directly based on Debian. It will be much easier to install and maintain. Then Canonical can scratch whatever itches and the Mint folks won't care.

It looks to me like ubuntu is limitning what a distribution can do if it uses ubuntu repositories, since the packages have ubuntu in their names, and ubuntu is a trademark of Canonical. If Linux Mint wants to keep ubuntu as a base, but not have to go through the hoops Canonical is throwing at them, they will need to build their own packages based on the source, that has been cleaned to remove the ubuntu term, and any logos, similar to what CentOS does.

> And if Canonical doesn't want others using their repositories, they should close them except to paying customers.

And that would be their demise, and rather quickly at that, wouldn't it???

> And that would be their demise, and rather quickly at that, wouldn't it???

Probably, though it seems to work well for Red Hat.

RedHat is a different market. RedHat is all about the server market, and providing support for those servers... Ubuntu is all about trying to get a foot-hold in the consumer market... A RedHat subscription is a drop in the bucket, in terms of operating expenses for an IT department,... While a competing (re-spin) distro may not be able to monetize their distro in such a way as to pay Canonical's "tax." Canonical is trying to limit those who "takin' their bacon,"... RedHat is trying (and succeeding) to make money as a software as service provider. It's ironic in that Canonical made a lot of their fans as a result of actually encouraging re-spins of their distro (I seem to remember something on the order of 12 "official" re-spins at one time).

> RedHat is a different market.

Not for want of trying on Canonical's part. The very much wanted to get into the enterprise market, but they don't seem to have made any significant progress.

You can't market a desktop solution as server room solution and expect to gain traction...