Comment 2 for bug 786212

Instructions on running a public instance would not put anyone in violation of a license -- those instructions would simply need to include instructions for replacing the images. But I see no reason why Canonical should provide those instructions: helping other people run public instances is not Canonical's goal, and Canonical has always been very clear about that as far as I can tell.

Open source means "you can fork it". It doesn't mean "other people are obligated to share your goals" :-).

By the way, I'm personally in no way opposed to public instances of Launchpad going live. I just don't think Canonical should be faulted for not supporting that -- there's no reason they should, and it's entirely consistent to open source the code and yet still not make any effort to support other instances. It may be an unusual approach, but it's still open source.

-Karl (speaking only for myself)