Adrian Hayter’s Blog

So one of my acquaintances, Matt has “launched” a new parody website of Microsoft and Ubuntu, called msubuntu.com. It’s pretty poorly designed at this stage, and contains a numerous amount of spelling errors (”Sponcers” for example), but apparently he’s going to get a nice template for it.

The idea is to get it like the hugely popular MSFirefox.com, slap a load of adverts on it, and then get paid by all the traffic visiting it. Of course he forgot completely about checking the illegality of the whole thing!

Microsoft’s annoyance at being paired with a Linux product aside, it seems that Ubuntu itself probably won’t take the site likely. From their policy:

Commentary and parody. The Ubuntu trademarks are designed to cover use of a mark to imply origin or endorsement by the project. When a user downloads something called Ubuntu, they should know it comes from the Ubuntu project. This helps Ubuntu build a reputation that will not be damaged by confusion around what is, and isn’t, Ubuntu. Using the trademarks in your discussion, commentary, criticism or parody, in ways that unequivocally do not imply endorsement, is permissible. Anyone is free to write articles, create websites, blog about, or talk about Ubuntu — as long as it’s clear to everyone — including people completely unfamiliar with Ubuntu — that they are simply referring to Ubuntu and in no way speaking for Canonical, or the Ubuntu project.

So, I’m assuming that mentioning a collaboration between Ubuntu and Microsoft isn’t going to do their reputation much good. The site doesn’t just “reference” Ubuntu either, it implies that there was an actual bond between the Ubuntu project and Microsoft. Good luck getting both companies to ignore that…

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