ASRock Industrial Partners With Canonical For Ubuntu-Certified Devices

[phoronix]

Phoronix: ASRock Industrial Partners With Canonical For Ubuntu-Certified Devices

ASRock Industrial, the independent company spun out of ASRock that is focused on industrial computers, edge systems, hardware for retail environments, has now partnered with Canonical to begin offering certified devices for Ubuntu Linux...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/ASRock-Industrial-Ubuntu

[uid313]

Maybe Canonical could get ASRock Industrial to have Coreboot support?

[dimko]

I am old and cynical.
I can't help but wonder, if its an attempt to get some Ubuntu's 'proprietary Mir style bullshit' into Asrock? If all 'drivers'/UEFI/etc are gonna be open source - then you go Ubuntu! Am I unreasonably cynical here?

[taggon]

I am old and cynical.
I can't help but wonder, if its an attempt to get some Ubuntu's 'proprietary Mir style bullshit' into Asrock? If all 'drivers'/UEFI/etc are gonna be open source - then you go Ubuntu! Am I unreasonably cynical here?

Mir was licensed under GPL, which makes it Free Software. It's not true that Mir was proprietary.

This kind of partnership puts Ubuntu software in a tested configuration on certain hardware with some kind of contract for support. It's impossible to see how that is supposed to put "proprietary bullshit" into ASRock (a hardware company that sells Linux-compatible hardware).

You seem to be paranoid about the mere possibility that a hardware-software bundle would ever be released that was intended to be tested and supported as a compatible pairing. Why? Why single out Ubuntu for this kind of abuse?

[skeevy420]

I am old and cynical.
I can't help but wonder, if its an attempt to get some Ubuntu's 'proprietary Mir style bullshit' into Asrock? If all 'drivers'/UEFI/etc are gonna be open source - then you go Ubuntu! Am I unreasonably cynical here?

I think this is more because Ubuntu is seen as a both a cool and hip Linux distribution as well as they offer LTS with up to 10 years of support; 5 free + 5 paid. When you're trying to sell hardware for commercial and industrial operations, being able to tell your customer that they can set it up and it'll get security updates for 5 to 10 years before they'll need to upgrade hardware or update the operating system is a good thing. Moreover, in 10 years when the OS goes EOL there's a good chance that they'll be able to upgrade from one LTS release to another LTS release and get 20 years out of their hardware with occasional software maintenance. 20 years isn't that unreasonable after considering just how powerful Intel and AMD embedded systems can be these days without using much power; think cash registers, self checkouts, ATMs, gas pumps, vehicle infotainment, electronic billboards, signage, home automation, etc.

Just think about how many systems were running Windows XP way, way after it EOL'd even after using Windows Embedded mode up to 2019...and how some things are. Being able to offer an operating system that'll fulfill roles like how XP is used is what companies want and what Ubuntu can offer. Yeah, other distributions can offer that same guarantee, but Ubuntu is arguably the easiest to use.

[skeevy420]

Mir was licensed under GPL, which makes it Free Software. It's not true that Mir was proprietary.

This kind of partnership puts Ubuntu software in a tested configuration on certain hardware with some kind of contract for support. It's impossible to see how that is supposed to put "proprietary bullshit" into ASRock (a hardware company that sells Linux-compatible hardware).

You seem to be paranoid about the mere possibility that a hardware-software bundle would ever be released that was intended to be tested and supported as a compatible pairing. Why? Why single out Ubuntu for this kind of abuse?

GPL or not, Canonical has a CLA that allows them to relicense the code at any time they wish. In order to submit to their code base you agree that Canonical can change the license whenever they want and that they can have your code. When you agree to that you basically dual-license your code under GPL for you and ??? for Canonical. Their CLA basically turns the GPL from copyleft to copyright and allows them to turn anything you or I contribute to them into proprietary software. That kind of Copyleft vs Copyright is literally why the CDDL (OpenZFS) isn't allowed to be part of the kernel.

You're free to call it GPL, but it's more like the CDDL in GPL's clothing.

Personally, I'm all for the CDDL and letting a person give their code to a greater organization. I just think that it's sketchy to do that with a CLA and the GPL when there are perfectly good license that are GPL compatible and allow proprietary code reusage.

[NobodyXu]

GPL or not, Canonical has a CLA that allows them to relicense the code at any time they wish. In order to submit to their code base you agree that Canonical can change the license whenever they want and that they can have your code. When you agree to that you basically dual-license your code under GPL for you and ??? for Canonical. Their CLA basically turns the GPL from copyleft to copyright and allows them to turn anything you or I contribute to them into proprietary software. That kind of Copyleft vs Copyright is literally why the CDDL (OpenZFS) isn't allowed to be part of the kernel.

You're free to call it GPL, but it's more like the CDDL in GPL's clothing.

Personally, I'm all for the CDDL and letting a person give their code to a greater organization. I just think that it's sketchy to do that with a CLA and the GPL when there are perfectly good license that are GPL compatible and allow proprietary code reusage.

That CLA would only work if you contribute code to ubuntu's codebase, that has nothing to do with license of OpenZFS since OpenZFS is not owned by ubuntu.

If ubuntu contribute to OpenZFS, then they will have to obey the CLA of OpenZFS, not CLA for ubuntu projects.

[skeevy420]

That CLA would only work if you contribute code to ubuntu's codebase, that has nothing to do with license of OpenZFS since OpenZFS is not owned by ubuntu.

If ubuntu contribute to OpenZFS, then they will have to obey the CLA of OpenZFS, not CLA for ubuntu projects.

Yeah, but that had nothing to do with Ubuntu contributing to OpenZFS.

I was using OpenZFS, the kernel, and CDDL and GPL as an example of copyleft and copyright; how Ubuntu's CLA bastardizes the GPL into being able to operate like the CDDL, where you grant the rights to owner, which isn't allowed to be mixed with GPL projects.

If I were GNU I'd consider a GPLv2.1 and v3.1 specifically to add a no CLA clause.

[RahulSundaram]

If I were GNU I'd consider a GPLv2.1 and v3.1 specifically to add a no CLA clause.

That's just not legally possible. GPL is a copyright license. A copyright license can only set the terms for distributing the software to non copyright holders. It cannot be used to restrict the copyright holders themselves from doing what they want.

[NobodyXu]

Yeah, but that had nothing to do with Ubuntu contributing to OpenZFS.

I was using OpenZFS, the kernel, and CDDL and GPL as an example of copyleft and copyright; how Ubuntu's CLA bastardizes the GPL into being able to operate like the CDDL, where you grant the rights to owner, which isn't allowed to be mixed with GPL projects.

If I were GNU I'd consider a GPLv2.1 and v3.1 specifically to add a no CLA clause.

That's still not the same.
CLA essentially says that the one who wrote the code can reuse the code in any context, but the codebase they contributed against is still GPL and anybody who use/modify the codebase would still have to obey the GPL.

It's only the one who wrote the code gets the ability to reuse it whatever they like, and that is totally ok because most developers do this anyway.