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    Selling Ubuntu Touch Devices and Respecting the License

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    • Q Offline
      Question_Asker
      last edited by

      Hi, let's say that someone would be thinking of selling Smartphones well-compatible with Ubuntu Touch and having that system preinstalled on them (and unmodified in any way), what would they need to know about the licenses of the project and how to comply with them perfectly to satisfy both the project and the potential seller's need for having a peace of mind?

      Note: I do wish to mention that obviously the customer would be informed constructively of benefits and potential drawbacks before purchasing such a device, and they would also be informed that the seller is in no way affiliated with the UBports or the Ubuntu Touch project itself and the system preinstalled is unmodified. Also, some of the seller's profit would happily turn into donations made to the Ubuntu Touch project.

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      • P Offline
        projectmoon @Question_Asker
        last edited by

        @Question_Asker https://volla.online. More specifically, https://volla.online/en/operating-systems/ubuntu-touch/. Pretty sure, as far as license goes, you just need to provide the GPL sources and so forth. Trademarks of Ubuntu Touch and UBPorts foundation would be a separate matter, and I have no idea how that is handled for commercial sellers that sell UT devices. Maybe certain assets/names are trademark protected. But as far as code goes, you can take the entire UT stack, slap it on a phone, and sell it, so long as you follow the GPL or other applicable licenses.

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        • G Offline
          gpatel-fr @Question_Asker
          last edited by

          @Question_Asker

          you have to be aware that Ubuntu Touch is in most cases NOT a full operating system, that is, it uses drivers developed for another operating system, Android. These drivers are often proprietary and in this case you have no license to get them from another device and slap them on some random hardware.

          Businesses like Volla are certainly Android licenced and as such benefit from the licenses agreement between Google and driver developers (to be clear I think of companies like Mediatek or Qualcomm).

          This caveat does not apply if you develop independent hardware such as the Pinephone - that's the exception of the 'most cases' written in my first paragraph.

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