Canonical 更新了 Ubuntu 使用條款受到自由軟體基金會的認可 - Linux

On July 15th, 2015, the Free Software Foundation's Licensing and Compliance
Lab, along with the Software Freedom Conservancy, announces that, after two
years of negotiations, Canonical, Ltd. has published an update to the
licensing terms of Ubuntu GNU/Linux.

This update now makes Canonical's policy unequivocally comply with the terms
of the GNU General Public License (GPL) and other free software licenses. It
does this by adding a "trump clause" that prevails in all situations possibly
covered by the policy:

> Ubuntu is an aggregate work of many works, each covered by their own
> license(s). For the purposes of determining what you can do with specific
> works in Ubuntu, this policy should be read together with the license(s) of
> the relevant packages. For the avoidance of doubt, where any other license
> grants rights, this policy does not modify or reduce those rights under those
> licenses.

In July 2013, the FSF, after receiving numerous complaints from the free
software community, brought serious problems with the policy to Canonical's
attention. Since then, on behalf of the FSF, the GNU Project, and a coalition
of other concerned free software activists, we have engaged in many
conversations with Canonical's management and legal team proposing and
analyzing significant revisions of the overall text. We have worked closely
throughout this process with the Software Freedom Conservancy, who provides
their expert analysis in a statement published today.

While the FSF acknowledges that the first update emerging from that process
solves the most pressing issue with the policy -- its interference with
users' rights under the GNU GPL and potentially other copyleft licenses
covering individual works within Ubuntu -- the policy remains problematic in
ways that prevent us from endorsing it as a model for others. The FSF will
continue to provide feedback to Canonical in the days ahead, and urge them to
make additional changes.

Today's "trump clause" makes clear that, for example, Canonical's requirement
that users recompile Ubuntu packages from source code before redistributing
them is not intended to and does not override the GPL's explicit permission
for users to redistribute covered packages in binary form (with no
recompilation requirement) as long as they also provide the corresponding
source.

While this change handles the situation for works covered by the GPL, it does
not help works covered by lax permissive licenses (such as the X11 license)
that do allow such additional restrictions. With that in mind, the FSF has
urged Canonical to not only respect the GPL but to also change its terms to
remove restrictions on any of the free works it distributes, no matter which
license covers that software. In the meantime, this is a useful reminder that
developers are nearly always better off choosing copyleft licenses like the
GPL in order to prevent others from imposing arbitrary restrictions on users.

Further, the patent language in the current policy should be replaced with a
real pledge to only make defensive use of patents and to not initiate
litigation against other free software developers. The trademark policy
should be revised to provide better guidance to downstream distributors so
that they can be confident they know exactly where and when trademarks need
to be removed in order to comply with the policy.

Canonical, in our conversations, repeatedly expressed that it is their full
intention to liberally allow use of their trademarks and patents by community
projects, and not to interfere with the exercise of rights under any copyleft
license covering works within Ubuntu. While we appreciate today's development
and do see it as a big step in that direction, we hope they will further
revise the policy so that users, to the greatest extent possible, know their
rights in advance rather than having to inquire about them or negotiate them.
To this end, it will be important to choose language and terms that emphasize
freedom over power and avoid terms like intellectual property, which spread
bias and confusion.

It would be helpful for the FSF, as we evaluate the importance of the
remaining work like this to be done with Canonical in relation to the other
activities of the FSF's Licensing and Compliance Lab (such as doing GPL
enforcement, and developing public educational materials about free software
licensing), to know how significantly you, as a free software user, see this
policy affecting your rights. Please contact us at [email protected], and
Canonical via their contact form.

Donations to support the work of the FSF's Licensing and Compliance Lab in
safeguarding your freedoms can be made at https://donate.fsf.org. Over 80% of
the FSF's annual funding comes from individuals like you.

Lastly, we wish to thank FSF general counsel Eben Moglen and everyone at the
Software Freedom Law Center for their pro bono legal counsel and extensive
participation in the conversations of the last two years.
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https://www.fsf.org/news/canonical-updated-licensing-terms

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