unity-design team mailing list archive

[Ryan Prior <ryanprior@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 1:40 PM, Sam Hulick <samh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Sorry, I think I'm looking for something else license wise. I don't mind
> if the sounds are used commercially (since Ubuntu can be used
> commercially), but I am looking to safeguard against someone taking these
> sounds and selling them to make a profit. I imagine the same is true for
> Ubuntu, no? No one can take copies of Ubuntu and sell them to keep the
> profits?
>

No worries. Licensing is complicated and often fraught with
misunderstandings.

Many longtime community members have studied licensing extensively and hold
precise, exacting, and discriminating opinions on a variety of licenses.
This is especially true in the Debian community, of which Ubuntu is a
sub-section. I hope you can forgive us for forgetting sometimes that not
everyone has as much interest in esoteric intellectual property concerns as
we have. ;-D

Interestingly, it is completely legal (and even encouraged) for people to
take Ubuntu and sell it for a profit. I've seen boxed copies sold in Best
Buy (and not by Canonical). Amazon, Microsoft and others sell Ubuntu
commercially through their on-line virtual cloud services (and keep the
profits, of course!).

Although there is a strong streak of socialism in the libre software
movement and the Ubuntu community in particular, you'll also find a strong
(sometimes even militant) capitalistic current. Remember that when people
in our community (if not in the media) talk about "free" software and
"free" culture, we are almost always referring foremost to the "freedom to
study and use in whatever manner suits you" aspect as apart from the "free
of cost to purchase/acquire" aspect.

Ryan