Restricted modules in Ubuntu

[Liam Proven]

2009/1/14 Matthew East <mdke at ubuntu.com>:
> On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 1:14 AM, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
>> And speaking of components and restricted ones, it is a real pain in
>> the neck to have to manually add in ubuntu-restricted-extras on *every
>> single Ubuntu box I install*. They are not optional if you want to use
>> the Web; Flash, Java and so on are pretty much mandatory. So, come to
>> that, are the w32codecs from the Medibuntu repository.
>>
>> I am not American; I am not in America; I never plan to live in
>> America. Nice place for a holiday, wouldn't want to live there. Yet as
>> far as I know, I have to jump through hoops installing this stuff
>> because they can't be included by /United States/ laws. These do not
>> apply to me.
>
> US law has nothing to do with this. As far as I can see, many of the
> packages in ubuntu-restricted-extras are perfectly fine to use in the
> US. Obvious examples from your original post are flash and java.
>
> These packages are not installed by default because they are not free
> software. Excluding non-free software by default is a choice that
> Ubuntu has made of its own accord, not because of legal restrictions.
>
> I gather from what you've said in your post that you may disagree with
> that choice, and if so, you probably want to run a different operating
> system. But blaming it on US law is misplaced.

But Ubuntu includes other binary blobs, from drivers on upwards. It
even includes the restricted-drivers tool to automatically enable
them. When I booted the disk on an Eee PC, it automatically loaded
(non-working versions of) the Atheros proprietary drivers, without a
network connection, so they are right there on the CD.

If Ubuntu was all-Free and included no proprietary binaries, then the
all-Free distro GnewSense would not exist. There would have been no
need to create it.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
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