[ubuntu-uk] Sad but true? From the Register

[Colin Watson]

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 04:20:14PM +0000, Ian Betteridge wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 2:26 PM, Colin Watson <cjwatson at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> > As I recently wrote on the sounder list: Adobe are entirely aware of the
> > existence of Ubuntu, and we are expressly forbidden from distributing
> > Flash in this manner. Unless you want Ubuntu to be distributed only from
> > a single site, with no more permission to share it with your friends, we
> > can't do this.
> 
> Just out of curiousity, Colin, have Adobe given any reasons for their decision?

Well, we weren't going to distribute it as part of Ubuntu anyway (see
e.g. http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/84). But nevertheless, you
only have to look at the Flash distribution licence, which is what we
would have to comply with in order to distribute Flash as part of Ubuntu
(http://www.adobe.com/products/clients/all_dist_agreement.html). I'll
quote a small amount of it under what I believe to be fair use:

  2.4 (b) New Versions. Upon release of a new version of the Software by
  Adobe, Distributor will cease all reproduction and distribution of the
  previous version of the Software upon the earlier of (i) the next
  release of the product or service with which Distributor bundles the
  Software, or (ii) six (6) months from the date Adobe makes such new
  version of the Software commercially available. As used in this
  section, “new version” means a major new release of the Software.
  Adobe may notify Distributor when new versions are released.

If it were part of Ubuntu, this would involve a mandatory respin of
older supported releases every six months, and no longer distributing
the old versions. (We don't do point releases of non-LTS releases for
release manager time reasons, and we still distribute older point
releases for comparison purposes.)

  2.5 (g) Web Download. Distributor may not make the Software available
  as a stand-alone product on the Internet. Distributor may direct end
  users to obtain the Software through electronic download on a
  standalone basis by linking to the official Adobe web site.

Ubuntu packages are stand-alone in this sense, I believe.

  2.5 (i) (i) Prohibited Devices. Distributor shall not distribute,
  download or embed any Adobe Runtime on any non-PC device or with any
  embedded or device version of any operating system. For the avoidance
  of doubt, and by example only, Distributor shall not distribute any
  Adobe Runtime for use on any (a) mobile device [...]

Ubuntu packages are usable on the mobile edition.

  2.5 (i) (ii) Default File Formats.  Distributor may not combine an
  Adobe Runtime with Distributor Product or Distributor Service in such
  a way that the Distributor Product's or Distributor Service’s own file
  format or data type replaces the file format or data type for the
  Adobe Runtime. For example, Flash Player and Shockwave Player must
  always remain the default players for their respective file formats
  and data types in the browser [...]

This would be difficult given that we distribute Gnash in main and so it
is in some sense preferred; we would have to make it awkward to get at
Gnash.

  17. Audit Right. Distributor agrees that upon request from Adobe or
  Adobe's authorized representative, Distributor will within thirty (30)
  days fully document and certify that Distributor is in conformity with
  the terms and conditions of this agreement. During the term of this
  agreement, Distributor will use commercially reasonable efforts to
  maintain a complete, clear, and accurate record of the number of
  copies of the Software it distributes during each calendar quarter in
  a manner sufficient to allow Adobe to verify compliance with the terms
  and conditions of this agreement.

This is the real kicker for distributing on mirrors. We wouldn't be able
to come close to auditing how many copies we distributed.


This licence expressly forbids some of the things we really need to do
in order to distribute Flash as part of Ubuntu. If Adobe were to let us
redistribute Flash on all our mirrors (which are substantially
uncontrolled by us), it would amount to granting a worldwide licence to
distribute Flash with many fewer restrictions than you can see that they
clearly want to impose.

As you can see from the most recent flashplugin-nonfree change in
Jaunty, we have been granted the right to distribute Flash from a single
unmirrored site, archive.canonical.com, which lets us make major Flash
upgrades a bit smoother for users by holding them off until we can
verify that it still works with all the browsers we distribute (which
has been a problem in the past). I don't have any privileged information
here, but I would be surprised if we were granted anything more than
that.


It's easy to forget, when dealing with the sort of free software
licences that we generally work with in main, that we actually depend on
some quite broad and permissive distribution terms in those licences to
be able to distribute a free operating system without encumbrances in
the form of user registration or "activation", per-user fees, and the
like. Those are permissions that generally simply aren't available with
proprietary software, whose distributors often want a measure of control
that free software developers willingly give up.

I mentioned that Adobe are entirely aware of Ubuntu's existence for a
reason. I think that what happens is that people compare Ubuntu to other
distributions that do ship Flash (and other codecs etc.) out of the box,
and say "hey, they can do it, why can't you?". Which, of course, is a
reasonable question. There are essentially two possible answers:

  1) They've paid a licence fee (probably per-user, although this is
     only speculation) to Adobe.

  2) They actually aren't allowed to do it, but are doing so anyway.

1) is easily dealt with: we definitely aren't going to pay a per-user
licence fee, if for no other reason that we don't and won't keep an
accurate count of our users. Cynically, I suspect that 2) is more likely
for most of the small live CDs out there. Perhaps they're small enough
that Adobe haven't noticed or have decided it isn't worth enforcing.
Ubuntu, though, has been one of the top five GNU/Linux distributions
pretty much since its foundation, and we are not going to go unnoticed.
In fact, we know that Adobe use Ubuntu internally:

  http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2006/09/flashforward_linux_demo.html

We simply aren't going to get away with distributing the Flash player as
part of Ubuntu and hoping that it'll be OK and nobody will mind. It just
doesn't work like that.


I've written this post from a pragmatic standpoint, because I know that
some people are dissatisfied with the answer we usually give. I do think
that the ethical answer is really the more important one: we don't
distribute Flash with Ubuntu because we believe it is contrary to our
goal of advancing free software. Nevertheless, I wanted to make it clear
that the ethical answer is not the only reason we can't distribute Flash
with Ubuntu: even if we were to compromise our ethics, it wouldn't make
any difference. We just don't have the necessary rights.

Regards,

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]