Ubuntu One Service Stirs Up Open-Source Controversy
 

The commercial sponsor and originator of the Ubuntu project, Canonical, has stepped into new territory with the launch of a storage and sync service called Ubuntu One. In the tradition of open source marketing, this has been a "quiet product launch", and appears to have come from nowhere in the last week or two.

It's essentially an online storage service for desktop users that's like the online storage/backup solution Dropbox. Although presently in invitation-only beta, once signed-up each user gets 2GB of online storage free of charge, and can buy 10GB for $10 per month.

Once signed-up, you need only install a small applet program on each Ubuntu computer you have. You'll then get what appears to be a network drive that files can be saved to. By installing the client applet on each of your Ubuntu computers (only Ubuntu at present!), you can sync files between your computers. It seems the plan is to tightly integrate Ubuntu One into many of Ubuntu's applications, so that storing files online will be seamless.

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I read the article over a few times, and I still can't see where the problem is. Canonical owns the "Ubuntu" name, and can put it on whatever they want. The client is OSS, so it isn't as if they are limiting the service to only Ubuntu systems, they are just using the name.

Where exactly is the problem here? Expecting Canonical to abide by the same guidelines other entities are held to for their own trademark is just silly. The guidelines are there to prevent other companies or groups from capitalizing on the Ubuntu name, not to limit Canonical's own ability to market the distribution.

Very true, and I'd love to see a healthy debate on the issue. I wasn't quite sure if it was RMS's FOSS politics that was the problem, or someone else's misunderstanding of it.

FWIW- I posted the story to advertise the service. :D

Cheers