Mark Shuttleworth Sends Out Apologies

[Alex Sarmiento]

That doesn't seem to match the fact that a) the owner of the site has lawyers supporting his argument, and b) Shuttleworth has backed down, agreeing that the use was legitimate, and blaming an over-enthusiastic new member of their legal team...

a) The lawyers of that site are obviously biased defending fixubuntu.com , that's what most lawyers do for their clients, is not? so that's irrelevant. They do not have any legal basis to support the way fixubuntu.com was using Canonical's trademark . The "nominative fair use" doctrine they are invoking simply does not applies in this case.

b) My impression is that MS is being misleading here with his statements . I do not think he is saying that fixubuntu.com was right or that Canonical had no the right to protect its trademarks in this case. All he is saying is that " the less-than-a-month-at-Canonical new guy sent out the toughest template letter[...]It was a mistake..." . He is basically saying that they were not friendly enough with that specific request.

[Alex Sarmiento]

No, he's clearly saying that Canonical is fine with "Ubuntu sucks!!" websites using their trademarks.

Yes, that's clearly stated in their "Intellectual property rights policy" official webpage.:

You can use the Trademarks in discussion, commentary, criticism or parody, provided that you do not imply endorsement by Canonical.

So? it seems they are not trying to silence criticism . He was also explaining that Canonical have the right to protect their trademarks and that they are constantly working on that .

In fact , he is explaining that canonical is quite friendly compared to most companies policies and local law enforcement jurisdictions . So the owner of fixubunt.com have no excuse.

[uid313]

Lack of transparency, he never mentioned which website it was he talked about, it was Fix Ubuntu.

Also what happens to the "new guy at Canonical" ?
Nothing?
I think he should be fired!
He did a huge mistake by abusing laws and attempting to strong-arm critics and caused a PR disaster for Canonical, this guy should be fired for incompetence and malice!

Also it begs the question, what kind of people do Canonical really employ?

[mrugiero]

Also what happens to the "new guy at Canonical" ?
Nothing?
I think he should be fired!
He did a huge mistake by abusing laws and attempting to strong-arm critics and caused a PR disaster for Canonical, this guy should be fired for incompetence and malice!

The new guy is the new guy, this means he doesn't know how things work there yet. You don't fire people just because they weren't fully trained yet. Also, it is not really know if this counts as abusing law, or if they are actually allowed. The only thing we do know is that their policy is supposed to be laxer than the guy thought.

Also it begs the question, what kind of people do Canonical really employ?

Nobody knows completely who they employ.

[mrugiero]

I'm very excited for the SteamMachines, as I've always been a console+gamepad gamer more than a PC+mouse+keyboard gamer, and I think it will brings wonders in matters of games, drivers, and kernel features to Linux. I'd deffinitely buy one for my living room and quit trying to play on my laptop. However, of course I would never work on one. I'll probably have a SteamMachine on my TV and take my laptop everywhere else. So one thing doesn't exclude the other: I'll be an Ubuntu and SteamOS user. I'm optimistic SteamOS will have a huge adoption.

And that's my whole point. As I said in my first answer on this topic, I do think it will have great success, and greater in numbers than Ubuntu. But I also think this will not affect negatively Ubuntu (i.e., its user base will not shrink because of SteamOS). I am a bit skeptical that it will imply a huge turn on the world or something like that, though.
I will not be buying one because I don't have money for it now, but I'd be probably doing the same as you if I had.

NOTE: Sorry for the double post, I sent the other one forgetting I had this in another window.

[madjr]

+1 Mark.

[synaptix]

Ubuntu is trademarked in the United States too, so it is protected . The owner of fixubuntu.com was appealing to the 'nominative fair use ' ,but sadly, his own website did not pass the application of his own argument. You have to take a look at the original website to realize that canonical was right. In reality , there are no "first amendment" issues

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

[Alex Sarmiento]

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

That's copyright, not trademark. And no, it does not works for fixubuntu.com neither.

[bkor]

That's copyright, not trademark. And no, it does not works for fixubuntu.com neither.

Interesting how you claim to know more than a lawyer. The EFF lawyer provided references. You make claims without providing clear examples. After the lawyer response, Canonical backed down quickly. Yet Canonical still somehow was right? Bzzt!!!

[Alejandro Nova]

Mark Shuttleworth apologizes to 2 groups of people.

1. The "Taxed Enough Already" Party, a Republican party faction in the United States. He says that they could be somehow offended by KDE open source developers' behavior.
2. People who criticize Canonical on a non technical and purely opinionated basis.

That means: Mark Shuttleworth is NOT apologizing to the people who he should be directing an apology on the first place: Aaron Seigo, Martin Gr??lin, Lennart Poettering, and every developer who criticizes Canonical on a technical basis.

MS, your behavior sucks. Really.