I don't think it's "wanting to squash competition by making it impossible for anyone else to sell modified versions of Canonical's software in the same market". I think it's simply being the unique gateway for other people to convert Canonical's initially created software into non-free (proprietary). And by unique gateway it means it is still possible, but to the discretion of Canonical's decision.
This lets Canonical do 2 important things: - Avoid fragmentation (something which Android already has, sadly). - Benefit from the non-free-software players (which are too used to take everything for free without contributing back; now they would need to contribute back, at least monetarily if it's Canonical's wish).
Complaining about CLAs in open source is bike-shedding. It's already good enough that Mir is GPL instead of proprietary, no?
I think it is a better model than Android
This lets Canonical do 2 important things:
- Avoid fragmentation (something which Android already has, sadly).
- Benefit from the non-free-software players (which are too used to take everything for free without contributing back; now they would need to contribute back, at least monetarily if it's Canonical's wish).
Complaining about CLAs in open source is bike-shedding. It's already good enough that Mir is GPL instead of proprietary, no?