Comment 56 for bug 375345

2009/5/16 Mark Shuttleworth <email address hidden>

>
> A lot of what we have built, in Canonical and Ubuntu, is infrastructure
> to handle complex conversations between people with widely different
> viewpoints, and to create collaboration between people with competing
> interests. We rely a lot on the best things in human nature - a shared
> desire to see the world improve, but we also create space for
> differences of priority, approach, or interest, and make an effort to
> defend against the worst things in human nature.
>
> Open source communities often have intense, happy, fruitful periods of
> collaboration between a small group of like-minded people, followed by
> explosive detonations and fights as the group grows and natural
> differences become more evident. Ubuntu has managed to grow enormously
> as a community because we actively invest in ways to address our
> differences. For example, some people say a community should use mailing
> lists, others believe in web forums, we managed to create effective
> leadership and collaboration across both. The real test of collaboration
> is not between people who see the world the same way and want exactly
> the same thing, it's whether you can create collaboration between
> diverse and different groups that really matters.
>
> One of the key potential areas of difference in the Ubuntu community is
> about commerce, and the relationship between Canonical, Ubuntu and the
> wider commercial and volunteer community that makes up this movement. We
> very consciously created BOTH Canonical and Ubuntu, with separate
> missions and mandates and organisational structures, to reflect the fact
> that there are differences between the project and the company. That's
> no accident - it was done deliberately, to make it easier to organise
> around for-profit and not-for-profit goals. We didn't want to build
> Ubuntu and THEN create a commercial organisation inside it, we wanted to
> signal commercial intent and the intertwined nature of Ubuntu and
> Canonical from the very beginning. So far, we have done well. The lines
> aren't pristine, Canonical and the project overlap tremendously, largely
> to the benefit of both. I often meet members of the community who don't
> realise the depth of Canonical's investment in their success, but then I
> often meet people who are appreciative of the way Canonical engages with
> other participants in Ubuntu.
>
> Nevertheless, there are bound to be some flashpoints, and this is
> naturally one of them. I'm proud of the fact that we can have a public
> conversation that draws on the full breadth of opinions, and I hope we
> can draw some good conclusions, shape our plans and accelerate the
> creation of the future of Ubuntu. My vested interest is in building a
> good community that can achieve everything we want for both Canonical
> and Ubuntu.
>
> When people start making wild accusations of aggressive behaviour or
> disingenuity, and proposing extreme alternatives of "north pole or south
> pole", then a conversation becomes unproductive. In the comment quote
> below, I see symptoms of both problems, and ask that we simply not
> accept this approach, it's not constructive.
>
>
> Gorgonzola wrote:
> > So canonical should, in the short term, rename the service, and in the
> > long term, transfer effective control/ownership of the trademark to the
> > community, by whatever legal means this requires (notice that this was
> > what the trademark policy was originally for: use was subject to
> > approval by the community council).
> >
> > Alternatively, Canonical should openly state that they have no intention
> > of continuing to uphold the trademark policy, change its terms of
> > licensing, assert their ownership of the project and stop making false
> > promises. i.e, fuck the community.
> >
> >
> So, the argument is "polar North, give over what I want, or polar South,
> say you don't care about the community"? Wow, that's not very
> innovative. The interesting options are always the more nuanced ones,
> which find ways to bring together different interests. This A-or-B
> approach runs the risk of polarising the debate down to options that are
> ultimately not interesting or useful to anybody. I strongly suggest we
> focus our energy on those more nuanced options that have got us this
> far, and not follow fundamentalists down their rabbitholes.
>
> > There's no middle ground in this,
> Really? No middle ground? I don't believe that's true. Arguments based
> on fundamentalist left or fundamentalist right turn productive
> communities into bitter, unproductive wastelands. I'm sure that's not
> the intent in this case, but left unchecked that's where it takes us.
> I've no interest in going there.
>
> The Ubuntu trademark has always had commercial value - only Canonical
> can offer official Ubuntu support, for example, and the fact that the
> Official Ubuntu Book is official is because Canonical says so (to the
> benefit of the authors). Canonical has tried to be a pioneer in making a
> valuable trademark available to the Ubuntu community under
> community-friendly terms, hence the trademark policy that was developed
> for that purpose (and which is being widely copied by other trademark
> holders, I'm proud to say). It's important to be able to envision a
> future which includes both successful commerce and free software, and
> this is part of that mix.
>
> Just as code can be dual-licensed by the copyright holder, making it
> available to free software users while still preserving some commercial
> flexibility, so a trademark can be licensed under multiple sets of
> terms. The trademark policy that allows LoCo teams to build
> Ubuntu-branded sites is one license, as it were, and Canonical's right
> to brand the online services infrastructure it provides as "Ubuntu One"
> is another.
>
> If you can't imagine that they could co-exist, then please have the
> generosity of spirit to allow those of us who CAN, the space in which to
> explore it. Pushing for either a trademark which has no value because
> anyone can use it for anything (in which point it loses its legal status
> as a trademark) or a trademark which is exclusively used by a company,
> is pushing to go back to about 1999.
>
> > it is, as others have put much more
> > eloquently than me, <a href=http://doctormo.wordpress.com/2009/05/15
> > /ubuntu-canonical-in-trademarks-and-trade/>about who is who’s daddy.</a>
> >
> I'm the daddy.
>
> And I have no problem imagining a rich future for Ubuntu and Canonical,
> which includes a full range of perspectives and contributors, and brings
> together people with really very different goals, in a productive
> collaboration. That is what both were born to achieve. As someone said,
> both are not adults, there is no simplistic "parent-child" relationship
> between them, they have shared goals and diverse goals, shared
> infrastructure and diverse infrastructure, and they have many
> interdependencies.
>
> Those who say "the Ubuntu community should not allow Canonical a
> privileged position" are perhaps unaware that the Ubuntu community is
> privileged to have Canonical's backing in the first place. And
> occasionally, someone new to Canonical says "those community guys
> shouldn't think we work for them", at which point they get reminded
> that, in some senses, we do. It's human nature to have blinkers on both
> sides, but thus far we've generally managed to get both sides to rise
> above it, and I'm sure we will do the same here.
>
> I've just arrived in gorgeous Catalunya in preparation for UDS
> Barcelona, where we will have ample opportunity to discuss this in
> person. Many folks from Canonical, and many non-Canonical folks who care
> just as much about Ubuntu, will be there (quite a few at Canonical's
> expense). I expect we'll forge new understandings and a good roadmap
> there. Canonical will NOT be giving up its title to the Ubuntu
> trademark, as suggested, but nor will it flounce out of the room and say
> "screw the community". Of that you can be sure ;-). The road ahead lies
> in finding strengths and shared opportunities on both sides.
>
> Maybe someone will say "this is it, I quit, I don't want to work on
> Ubuntu together with Canonical, I don't want a world which is more
> diverse than my specific values". If they do, that's their prerogative.
> Remember, the Ubuntu project has always been defined by that
> collaboration - company and community - it's nothing new, and it gets
> stronger when we remind ourselves of that and when people with wildly
> different expectations leave. There's no sense in calling people names
> over this - it's perfectly acceptable for people to want different
> things. I'm just interested in working well with those who are actually
> interested in exploring how open source, and commercial success, can go
> hand in hand. And Ubuntu One is part and parcel of that exploration.
>
>
Mark, thank you for your measured and nuanced response and explanation.

Is there any intention to make the server side open at some point?

Anzan