Razor_keen wrote: if there was an iso available to install a custom kernel and linuxcnc, im sure there is no copyright infringement, is there?
Here's what Ubuntu has to say about intellectual property:
www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/...tual-property-policy
Here is what I think is the important part of it for the purposes of your question:
Any redistribution of modified versions of Ubuntu must be approved, certified or provided by Canonical if you are going to associate it with the Trademarks. Otherwise you must remove and replace the Trademarks and will need to recompile the source code to create your own binaries. This does not affect your rights under any open source licence applicable to any of the components of Ubuntu. If you need us to approve, certify or provide modified versions for redistribution you will require a licence agreement from Canonical, for which you may be required to pay. For further information, please contact us (as set out below).
You specifically asked about copyright; the above paragraph is not about copyright, but rather about trademark. Copyright, patent, and trademark can all be used as legal tools to make redistributing software illegal. It is Canonical/Ubuntu's claim that under trademark law you cannot redistribute a modified version Ubuntu unless you meet the requirements of that paragraph.
Since I don't expect we would "be approved, certified or provided by Canonical .. for which you may be required to pay", we would have to "remove and replace the Trademarks and will need to recompile the source code to create your own binaries", a task that would involve going through the source code of each package in Ubuntu to find and remove any Ubuntu trademarks. Ubuntu/Canonical do not provide a list of such packages, let alone a list the trademarked files (e.g., artwork) inside those packages, this creates a lot of good old fashioned FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) when it comes to modifying and redistributing Ubuntu.
Right now we distribute essentially one modified Ubuntu package: the kernel itself, with realtime patches. Assuming for the moment that whoever did this did due diligence in checking that there were no Ubuntu trademarks in the kernel package, this meets their requirements as set out in the intellectual property document linked above.
But distributing a live or installable image (.iso) that includes a graphical desktop could involve thousands of packages (a server version of Ubuntu 14.04 that I could easily check had over 500 packages installed, and a linux mint install I had handy had over 2400). To play by Ubuntu/Canonical's rules, each one has to be reviewed for containing Ubuntu trademarks; and if they are in there the package has to be modified and rebuilt. You could lose a year of your life in that project, even if you can review and recompile six packages a day everyday.
(And this all leaves aside the question of patents; in the same document linked above, Ubuntu/Canonical say they have unspecified patents in unspecified packages that of course you may not use without their permission. The kernel package would in fact be a very likely place for patent-infringing code to be included. Ugh)
Ubuntu/Canonical have deliberately made it very hard to create distributions based on Ubuntu, and in my opinion it's evil, but it's a fact and I absolutely don't want to pick a fight with them over it.
