Idea for expanded support of some non-free software

[thully at umich.edu]

I know that in many cases it isn't legally possible to include non-free software
(like MP3 and DVD).  In these cases, I realize the legal limitations they are
under, and I don't expect them to break the law.  The only additional thing I
would suggest in these cases is 1)Try everything possible to at least integrate
some support for these formats (maybe Wine could be utilized, or MP3 playback
but not recording could be added to restricted - it is already in universe,
after all). 2)Include informative messages when a user tries to use these
formats that explains the situation and maybe points them to the wiki or
something.

However, there is another set of cases - those cases when something requires
non-free software and free software is either nonexistant or doesn't have
enough functionality to be viable.  Until about five years ago, Netscape was
one of these cases.  It was the only viable browser on Linux, and it was
non-free.  However, it was still supported in almost all Linux distributions -
as what are you going to do, go without the Web or use lynx all the time?  Now,
however, Mozilla, Firefox, and a whole slew of other free-as-in-freedom programs
have fulfilled this need, making Netscape unnecessary.  Currently, Flash and
Java fall into this category.  They are commonly used on the web, and most
desktop users would reasonably expect to be able to utilize them.  However, the
only implementations that work reasonably well are non-free.  IMHO, these should
be included in restricted if possible (if not, include "dummy packages") and
supported to the extent to which their closed-source nature allows.  Ubuntu
already takes this policy on drivers - why not expand it to include support for
formats that are used by a significant portion of desktop PC users which
currently have no viable free implementation.

I realize that uni/multiverse are available to use packages like the
above-mentioned, but they have a collossal problem - they are unsupported.
I didn't really care about this, until I reported a bug that referenced problems
with Flash that were introduced in Hoary (but didn't exist in Warty) that didn't
involve a new version of Flash.  It was closed with resolution UNIVERSE.  I feel
that Ubuntu should care about issues like this, and these packages should be
supported.

If you're interested, here is the bug in question:
https://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=4091
I opened a new, related bug later when it became 100% evident that it wasn't
Flash's fault:
https://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=4405