Selling Laptop with Ubuntu Preinstalled

[rhinehramirez]

If I wanted to sell laptops preinstalled with Ubuntu, do I need to have a partnership with Canonical?

I apologize if I am posting in the wrong forum, but I have reached out to Canonical 3 times now and have yet to receive a response.

The company I work for receives in thousands of laptops every week that we normally sell off in a wholesale distribution channel.

However, we are starting a community outreach project where we will be selling laptops to local students and their families that do not have the financial freedom to go out and buy a new laptop.

We would like to keep the cost low by preloading the laptops with Ubuntu - otherwise we have to buy licensing rights from Microsoft which would exponentially increase the price of the laptop.

I have reviewed the "partner with Ubuntu" page, but again I have hear nothing back from Canonical.

Any extra information would be greatly appreciated.

[stalkingwolf]

I wouldnt think so. You will be selling the laptop not the OS. Sellers everywhere resell refurbished computers with Ubuntu or another release on them

[HermanAB]

The simple reality is that unless you are immensely successful and sell thousands of computers per month, nobody at Canonical will care.

The point raised above is also correct. Provided that you sell the system with a default Ubuntu installed and you don't modify the OS (ala Mint), you will not contravene anything.

[monkeybrain20122]

So if he install software not come with Ubuntu by default (say vlc) is it modification?

[bapoumba]

Thread moved to Ubuntu, Linux and OS Chat.

[Gyokuro]

Maybe I'm wrong but that sounds that you want to become an OEM - I would suggest that you contact Canonical about your intention and I think you should think about in case you earn some money with it you can donate it to them or the project - I would write them and look what they will reply. Maybe some mods here who is in charge and can forward your message to said person.

[grahammechanical]

Canonical does not charge for Ubuntu and you cannot charge for Ubuntu. Canonical charges for various services and you can charge for various services. In my opinion, modification refers to modification of the open source code and not to removing default applications after installation or the installation of other applications that are not part of the default distribution.

Here are the official documents.

http://www.ubuntu.com/intellectual-property-policy

These are the conditions that Canonical applies to itself so that we, the user, do not lose our open source freedom.

Must allow redistribution ... Must not require royalty payments or any other fee for redistribution ... It's important that you can exercise your rights to this software without having to pay for the privilege, and that you can pass these rights on to other people on exactly the same basis ... The licence of software included in Ubuntu cannot discriminate against anyone or any group of users and cannot restrict users from using the software for a particular field of endeavour - a business for example ... Must not be distributed under a licence specific to Ubuntu ... we will not put our own software into Ubuntu and then refuse you the right to pass it on.

http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu/licensing

Regards.

[rhinehramirez]

Much appreciated for all of your responses!

I figured that as long as we are charging for the hardware and not the software we would be OK.

I am curious to know however (as Monkeybrain20122 inquired), if we install software - in his question, VLC - are we modifying the source code and thus are not allowed to redistribute?

[bapoumba]

.. Maybe some mods here who is in charge and can forward your message to said person.

Canonical run the servers we are on and we run the forums. If related to the forums, we have contacts. Other than that, we are one the same page as you all are

[QIII]

... which is to say none of the Forum Staff is employed by Canonical and we have no official connection with them.

Contact Free Geek in Portland, Oregon, USA and see if you can talk to someone about their requirements. They refurbish old hardware for sale to those who would otherwise not be able to afford computers. They pre-install Lubuntu, but all *buntus are trademarked by Canonical.