Proposed MBF - mentions of the word "Ubuntu"
It appears that Canonical have gone to war with anyone who mentions
the word "Ubuntu" in a way they don't like:
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/canonical-abused-trademark-law-to-target-a-site-critical-of-ubuntu-privacy/
Normally we take a relaxed approach to trademarks. We use them,
expecting that in the cases where trademark law gives the trademark
holder a say, the holder approves of our uses, which we think are
unobjectionable.
The flipside is that when we receive lawyer letters over trademarks,
where the trademark holder is preventing us from doing something we
consider essential for software freedom, we rename things.
Naturally we should apply that same principle for the benefit of our
downstreams: if we discover that someone is being bullied by the
trademark holder, we should protect them by preemptively renaming
things.
Of course "Ubuntu" is not software in Debian. But much software in
Debian does refer to Ubuntu somehow. And now it appears that
Canonical is widly overreaching. So perhaps, to protect our
downstreams, we should grep our entire source base for the word
"ubuntu" and replace it with something else.
The first step would probably be a mass bug filing.
Ian.
(Posted to -project because I'm writing with my tongue in my cheek.
Actually renaming and rewording things would be making our own life
difficult to spite Canonical. Much better to stick up two fingers.
But nevertheless, I would like to suggest that the DPL contact Mark
Shuttleworth and tell him that this kind of shit is very damaging to
our good relationship.)
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