Freespire's Google ads: "What is Ubuntu Missing?"

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Tue, Sep 26, 2006 at 07:30:19PM -0700, Daniel Robitaille wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-26-09 at 19:02 -0700, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> > On Sat, Sep 23, 2006 at 08:53:59PM -0600, Conrad Knauer wrote:
> > > Also, I read the Wikipedia article on MP3s a little more closely and
> > > it mentions "patent holders declined to enforce license fees on open
> > > source decoders, allowing many free MP3 decoders to develop.
> > > Furthermore, while attempts have been made to discourage distribution
> > > of encoder binaries, Thomson has stated that individuals using free
> > > MP3 encoders are not required to pay fees. Thus while patent fees have
> > > been an issue for companies attempting to use MP3, they have not
> > > meaningfully impacted users, allowing the format to grow in
> > > popularity."
> > 
> > Unfortunately, there is no reference; I would be interested to hear more
> > about this claim.
> 
> I found this on their mp3 web site:
> 
> "However, no license is needed for private, non-commercial activities
> (e.g., home-entertainment, receiving broadcasts and creating a personal
> music library), not generating revenue or other consideration of any
> kind or for entities with associated annual gross revenue less than US$
> 100 000.00."
> 
> http://www.mp3licensing.com/help/index.html

Hmm.  That's quite a different matter than whether the player is free or
not.  It's easy to show that Ubuntu is free, but we do not (and will not)
restrict its use for commercial purposes.

The question is, who can they hold responsible for this?

-- 
 - mdz