Re: Pirating Ubuntu?

["Kristian Erik Hermansen" <user=152@nabble.blu.org>]

 On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 7:13 PM, Matthew Gillen <[hidden email]> wrote: 
> And that job may be very difficult, because figuring out exactly which 
> licenses go with which bits can be mind-numbing (unless they included a 
> separate "value added" directory with all the non-open-source stuff they put 
> in, which is unlikely).  If you happen to know which version of Ubuntu it's 
> based on and have a copy of that handy, you might be able to do a diff of 
> some sort.  But I imagine it would still be a royal pain-in-the-ass. 
> 
> Think about this: what if they added a single, proprietary driver to the 
> kernel package(s) to support some fancy 18-button mouse.  How would you 
> figure that out if it wasn't documented (I'd be surprised if they 
> volunteered such documentation; it's not in their interest to help you 
> figure out what they changed).  Furthermore, some OSI-approved licenses (the 
> BSD license is the prime example) allow derivative works that are 
> proprietary.  So you might see a package that looks and smells like apache, 
> but is in fact their proprietary product (in this particular case they 
> couldn't still call it apache since the Apache Foundation is vigilant about 
> their trademark, so you'd get some help there). 
> 
> More to the point, IF they added something that isn't in base Ubuntu, in all 
> likelihood it isn't freely redistributable, so you'd have to remove it.  And 
> then you'd be left with base Ubuntu. 
> 
> So the answer is, yes you could legally redistribute the vast majority of 
> whatever is on that CD.   But it would be sort of pointless, since there are 
> already Ubuntu ISOs out there.