Ubuntu is going to protect brand name

With a new branding policy, Canonical, the company behind the Linux distribution Ubuntu, makes it clear that it is increasingly targeting the business market. It is now no longer possible to use arbitrary product names ending in ‘buntu’.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu project, announced the new policy regarding the Ubuntu brand name on his weblog. Canonical has the names and logos of Ubuntu, Edubuntu. Xubuntu and Kubuntu registered and no longer allows these logos to be used by arbitrary organizations and agencies to promote products. Especially in the field of derivative distributions, Ubuntu hopes to provide clarity with the new policy. The Ubuntu variants have since been certified by various companies. Sun Microsystems and IBM, among others, have tested Ubuntu and declared it suitable for their products.

To make it clear to Ubuntu users which distributions these certifications apply to, Linux distributions should not use names similar to Ubuntu, including names ending in “buntu” or containing the word Ubuntu. Only if the distribution is derived from the original Ubuntu distribution and differs from the original only in terms of packages installed by default, Ubuntu may still be used; then the addition ‘remix’ should be used. Projects like Ubuntu Studio, Fluxbuntu, and Elbuntu may require this new policy to request permission to continue using their current name.