Oracle interested in buying Ubuntu

[Daniel Robitaille]

On 4/19/06, Matthew East <mdke at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-04-18 at 22:33 -0700, Daniel Robitaille wrote:
> > On 4/18/06, Alexander Jacob Tsykin <stsykin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Wednesday 19 April 2006 14:14, Daniel Robitaille wrote:
> > > > In some ways that what's I was expecting when we heard that Mark
> > > > bought ImpiLinux last year:  keep a free Ubuntu we all know and use,
> > > > but have a parallel "Ubuntu-Plus" that is no-free (but still very
> > > > affortable) with all the non-free/libre stuff all ready for the users.
> > > That would run counter to the Ubuntu philosophy:
> > >
> > > "Ubuntu will always be free of charge, and there is no extra fee for
> > > the "enterprise edition", we make our very best work available to everyone on
> > > the same Free terms." (http://www.ubuntu.com)
> > >
> > > I don't think he would want to do that.
> >
> > Essentially it is Mepis, but under Mark's control.  Nobody said
> > anything about charging for Ubuntu. I'm was hypothetically talking
> > about a totally different distro that just happen to have the same
> > core than Ubuntu, but with the extra bits non free available for a
> > small amount of money.
>
> Everyone keeps forgetting that the reason our favourite operating system
> isn't completely non-free ready is based on two factors, first the
> philosophy, and second a wish to avoid getting sued. There isn't a way
> around the second one, even if you put out other distros. If you're
> worth suing, you just can't do it.

Of course I haven't forgotten this.  you're not going to get sued if
you buy the license or reach agreement with the license holders of
these non-free items.    Then to recover these fees you sell that
partly non-free distro for a specifc amount of money. I would assume
that's part of the money you pay the Mepis, Mandriva, Suse of these
world that comes mp3-ready.



--
Daniel Robitaille