You can only be sued based on a specific wrong, and only under the laws that govern it. That's not something that Canonical can change. You can only sued for property damage if there was actually damaged property. Likewise you can only be sued for copyright infringement if you infringed on copyright. You don't need a statement from Canonical for that.
The IP policy appears to require that I remove more trademarks than trademark law would require me to remove. The logical conclusion (and one that Mark has implied is correct) is that Canonical assert additional copyright restrictions over their source packages.
What I think you want is a promise that, if you are given a copyright license contingent on you adhering to our trademark policy, you won't be sued for infringing copyright if you violate that policy but continue distributing copies. Basically you want to void the requirement that you adhere to the trademark policy, and you won't get that.
I have no interest in infringing Canonical's trademark rights. I have an interest in knowing what modifications I need to make to Ubuntu in order to ensure that I'm not infringing Canonical's trademark rights. If Canonical's trademark policy uses copyright law to restrict my use of their trademarks above and beyond what trademark law would permit, I would like Canonical's trademark policy to be modified such that that's no longer the case.
Like I said, I'm happy to do the work necessary to modify Ubuntu packaging such that potentially infringing marks are split out and easily replaced. But that's only useful work if Canonical will agree that any modified version of Ubuntu that replaces those packages can be freely distributed without requiring any additional permission from Canonical.
Power management, mobile and firmware developer on Linux. Security developer at nvidia. Ex-biologist. Content here should not be interpreted as the opinion of my employer. Also on Mastodon and Bluesky.
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Re: Comparing to Fedora / Comparing to Red Hat
Date: 2015-11-23 09:31 pm (UTC)The IP policy appears to require that I remove more trademarks than trademark law would require me to remove. The logical conclusion (and one that Mark has implied is correct) is that Canonical assert additional copyright restrictions over their source packages.
I have no interest in infringing Canonical's trademark rights. I have an interest in knowing what modifications I need to make to Ubuntu in order to ensure that I'm not infringing Canonical's trademark rights. If Canonical's trademark policy uses copyright law to restrict my use of their trademarks above and beyond what trademark law would permit, I would like Canonical's trademark policy to be modified such that that's no longer the case.
Like I said, I'm happy to do the work necessary to modify Ubuntu packaging such that potentially infringing marks are split out and easily replaced. But that's only useful work if Canonical will agree that any modified version of Ubuntu that replaces those packages can be freely distributed without requiring any additional permission from Canonical.