And a correction…
Canonical does in fact own some of the code. In terms of copyrights…all of the major Canonical funded projects require copyright assign back to Canonical.

http://www.canonical.com/contributors

Bzr, upstrart, jockey, checkbox, libindicate, notify-osd….and all the open components of launchpad…all of these projects and more require copyright assignment to Canonical.

If you submit submit substantial improvements to any of these codebases you must assign copyright ownership over to Canonical

This gives Canonical the ability to re-license the contributions however they see fit..including re-purposing the code as part of a proprietary codebase. For most things this isn’t a big deal because for most of those project the community has access to a fully functional work. If Canonical decided to fork bzr or upstart into proprietary works by re-licensng, the community would be able to move on with the existing open codebase with the exact same starting point as Canonical.

Launchpad however is different. Canonical is NOT opening critical pieces of launchpad..they are keeping Soyuz(ubuntu package building) and CodeHosting(bzr-launchpad integration) as proprietary specifically to prevent anyone in the “community” from forking and creating a separate web service. Because Canonical requires you to assign copyright to Canonical for anything you contribute to the open Launchpad components, Canonical has the ability to re-purpose that code and use it in the still closed components.

Even better because those components are closed, they wouldn’t even have to give you credit as the original author of the functionality if it leaks into the closed components. And the “community” would have absolutely no say in the matter because the “community” is compelled to assign Canonical copyright ownership which allows Canonical to preferentially to do anything they wish with the “community” contributed functionality.

Whether or not this is fine with individual contributors is a matter between themselves and Canonical. But to suggest that Canonical doesn’t own the code.. is demonstratively false..for pretty much all the projects that Canonical has initiated. It’s interesting to compare Canonical and Red Hat on that score. Can you name a codebase that Red Hat maintains that requires copyright assignment to Red Hat from contributors? When you contribute to a Red Hat sponsored project like libvirt or to any of the projects initiated as part of Fedora development such as the koji build system..you own the copyrights to your contributions.

-jef

* Much of the development on Linux and Ubuntu is motivated by money. Though, the end product is usually a service or experience rather than individual components.

@Jef:
I think you misread. I did not say Ubuntu is anti-capitalist. I said it could be seen as anti-capitalist for the reason given above.

Another reason is software ownership. Canonical do not own the code, it belongs to the community.

Even I don’t go as far as to call Ubuntu anti-capitalist.
Is that a meme running through the current Ubuntu userbase or did Guy just use that term to be sensationalistic ? You have to watch editorial/bloggers like a hawk. They have a tendency to say all sorts of things without really putting much thought into the accuracy of what they are saying.

So Guy, why did you write that? Was it just a flippant remark or is that a serious meme going around inside the Ubuntu community? If it is, cite references.

Ubuntu is definitely not anti-capitalist. Shuttleworth has consistently said that Canonical is a for-profit business. If Canonical doesn’t make money, Ubuntu will have a very hard time continuing as a project. All of the core infrastructure that Ubuntu relies on is Canonical infrastructure.

Canonical is not the Shuttleworth Foundation. That is a completely separate entity which is funding software development as a non-profit. Sure Shuttleworth Foundation funded Schooltool is leveraging Canonical funded properties like Ubuntu and Launchpad to do their work in a weird sort of incestuous mix of Shuttleworth funding project development. But Canonical is a for-profit business to be sure. Shuttleworth continues to re-state that he hopes Canonical will be profitable at some point. That as capitalist as any start-up company.

Shuttleworth did set aside 10 million for Ubuntu operations under the stewardship of the Ubuntu Foundation as a hedge against Canonical collapsing as a business. But that foundation has nothing to do with day to day operations of Ubuntu and has no control over things like the trademarks.
When Canonical requested eeeUbuntu to change its name (now called Easy Peasy btw) because of infringement on the Ubuntu trademarks..that was a commercial enterprise protecting its commercial property..very capitalistic behavior.

Whether the Ubuntu Foundation is anti-capitalist is up for debate, as its a non-profit entity, but that debate is only relevant if Canonical craters and the Ubuntu foundation has to step in and start funding Ubuntu operations. But if things ever get to that point, they’ll be far more pressing concerns than the anti-capitalism debate. Anyone heard anything from the Ubuntu Foundation lately. I think you can request yearly financial statements from them as part of their non-profit status. That’d be an interesting thing to read about.

-jef