Matthew Garrett

Huh. I wrote my reply to the above commenter first, then read yours. You bring up a lot of good points that I can't say I hadn't thought of, but that I hadn't thought to put into so many words, as I wasn't sure how to address the mismatch in IP policy and what's offered to the average end user, but you're right, those are in total disagreement. Which is adding to the confusion and making who can do what (and why they can do so, or why not) a lot more opaque and harder to understand than it ought to be. The whole "it's better to ask permission first" scenario seems to be Canonical's only redress for the fact, which they pretty much openly acknowledge, that they're trying to come off as free to use and share but actually want to charge money force people to strike deals with clear limitations for any substantial redistribution of their OS.