Can I support Ubuntu commercially?

[QwUo173Hy]

Can I provide professional support for Ubuntu?

I'm interested in introducing some schools in my area to (Edu/)Ubuntu. I'm considering offering technical support to some of those who have expressed an interest. I can see that others are doing something similar:

From http://edubuntu.org/news/9.04-release (http://edubuntu.org/news/9.04-release)


Professional commercial technical support is available from Canonical Ltd Ubuntu Paid Support and hundreds of other companies around the world. For more information about support, visit Ubuntu Support


However, when I want to investigate what Ubuntu has to offer my local school I see in the copyright section http://www.ubuntu.com/legal


You are welcome to display on your computer, download and print pages from this website provided the content is only used for personal, educational and non-commercial use.


This is pretty much saying that since my intentions have a commercial element, I can't read the material? This seems surprising to me.

[castrojo]

Info on partnership: http://www.ubuntu.com/partners

[QwUo173Hy]

Thank you whiprush, that is very helpful to me.

I'd still like to know where I stand legally. Phrases like this from http://webapps.ubuntu.com/marketplace/ make partnership seem optional;

If your company offers services and support for Ubuntu, we want to list you! Please send us your information.

However the piece quoted in the original post communicates to me that commercially interested parties are infringing the law by using this material.

It's a fundamental issue and we can't proceed until we clear it up.

[Mahngiel]

People teach windows classes and that old man sells cds on how to learn windows. I don't see how that's infringement since you're teaching your knowledge on a system that is made readily available.

It's not like your selling their free product, you're selling your insight in using that product - which comes down essentially to you selling your time.

[Mahngiel]

But if you're asking if they'll pay you to teach their product... I doubt it.

[QwUo173Hy]

The crux of my question is: What does the following statement on the Ubuntu site mean to me;

You are welcome to display on your computer, download and print pages from this website provided the content is only used for personal, educational and non-commercial use.

[earthpigg]

You are welcome to display on your computer, download and print pages from this website provided the content is only used for personal, educational and non-commercial use.

This is pretty much saying that since my intentions have a commercial element, I can't read the material? This seems surprising to me.

it mean's you can't print the official wiki (or any other parts of the website) and then sell it or give it away as part of a support subscription plan. no one can control whether or not you can read it...

and it doesn't mention linking to the website, so you can send emails to your clients ending in "...for more details, please see THIS page."

if it came to pass that Canonical wanted to get some lawyers and prosecute you for that (very unlikely), you could argue that you did indeed read the website for non-commercial reasons, bookmarked it, and then when you where later involved in commercial activity: you linked to it without reading it in your commercial capacity. it's a silly hypothetical, but i suppose the crux of your question is a "what if, after Canonical has been taken over by Lucifer..." type of question.

all of that being said: i am about a zillion percent sure that linking to a publicly available website is always considered "fair use of copyrighted material", as long as you don't misrepresent the websites linked as your work. google links to copyrighted material all the time - check out news.google.com.

furthermore: "You are welcome to..." does not imply "doing the following is illegal unless..."

just because you "aren't welcome" to do something doesn't mean you are prohibited from doing it... it just means you don't get a metaphorical welcome mat when you do.

[tgalati4]

You need to get permission to use Ubuntu logos from Canonical. You can put Ubuntu stickers on your computer. I just did yesterday--ones I picked up at the SCALE conference.

Putting a 3' magnetic Ubuntu logo on your minivan is another story. One that I want to see a picture of!

[QwUo173Hy]

Thanks earthpigg, that's cleared up things in my mind. I'm not too savvy with legalities but the business world certainly seems to have its sleeping serpents when it comes to T's and C's.

[jdrodrig]

For me the main difference is whether you want to sell your services claiming to be "certified by Canonical" or backed up by Ubuntu developers or simply backed up by your personal reputation and some sort of garantee.

Sales trick: you can offer them, "after one hour of paid-tech support, you would receive a free copy of ubuntu"...=)

Well, of course, Ubuntu is free, but if you provide the service of actually downloading the image (bandwidht), and burning the CD (hardware services) then you would actually be giving a free original product.

[ssam]

the actual content of the help.ubuntu.com is Creative Commons ShareAlike 3.0 License (CC-BY-SA), so you can print and distribute that (as long as you say where its from).
https://help.ubuntu.com/legal.html

the partnering is probably more to do with having a backup level of support, so that when you hit a problem that you don't understand you can ask canonical for support.

[QwUo173Hy]

the actual content of the help.ubuntu.com is Creative Commons ShareAlike 3.0 License (CC-BY-SA), so you can print and distribute that (as long as you say where its from).
https://help.ubuntu.com/legal.html

the partnering is probably more to do with having a backup level of support, so that when you hit a problem that you don't understand you can ask canonical for support.

Well that's a relief. The statement on www.ubuntu.com/legal must just refer to the main site itself then, which is mostly promotional anyway.