Clarification on IP Rights Policy
Jane Silber
on 15 July 2015
We are updating our Intellectual Property Rights Policy to clarify the relationship between this policy and the licences of the constituent works in Ubuntu. Specifically, we are adding a single clause which states:
“Ubuntu is an aggregate work of many works, each covered by their own licence(s). For the purposes of determining what you can do with specific works in Ubuntu, this policy should be read together with the licence(s) of the relevant packages. For the avoidance of doubt, where any other licence grants rights, this policy does not modify or reduce those rights under those licences.”
We are proud to choose the GPL as the default licence for the software that Canonical writes, and we do that because we believe it is the licence that creates the most freedoms for its users. We have always recognised those rights in this Policy, and over the course of a long conversation with the Free Software Foundation and others, we agreed to eliminate any doubt by adding this new language.
We would like to thank the Free Software Foundation and the Software Freedom Conservancy for their suggestions in this regard over the past year. We’ll continue to evolve our policies, in consultation with the very diverse groups that make up the open source community, to reflect best practice and the needs of Canonical and the Ubuntu community.
Talk to us today
Interested in running Ubuntu in your organisation?
Newsletter signup
Related posts
Migrating from CentOS to Ubuntu: a guide for system administrators and DevOps
CentOS 7 is on track to reach its end-of-life (EoL) on June 30, 2024. Post this date, the CentOS Project will cease to provide updates or support, including...
Canonical at Dell Technologies World 2024
Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu and the trusted source for open source software, is thrilled to announce its sponsorship of Dell Technologies World again...
Ubuntu Pro for EKS is now generally available
May 14, 2024 – Canonical, the publisher of Ubuntu, is delighted to announce the general availability of Ubuntu Pro for Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service...