Idea for expanded support of some non-free software

[Philippe Landau]

Jeff Waugh wrote:
>>I know Ubuntu's mission is to support free software, but there are some
>>instances when non-free software is the only option.
> Where non-free software is legally redistributable, it may be packaged and
> distributed through our unsupported multiverse repository. However, much of
> the software you've mentioned is *not* legally redistributable, however much
> we paper over the basic issue of it being non-free and unsupportable. :-)
of course you could install it on your development computers,
test it, make it work well, provide scripts
guiding through the legal download from their original sources,
and facilitate optional integration in the ubuntu desktop.

this could be accompanied by pushing software that converts
proprietary multimedia files using open source and free codecs
and software encouraging sharing and streaming,
encoding and burning such files to CD/DVD.

currently, making DVD movies, flash, java, p2p, etc
work on ubuntu is often a time consuming and uncertain challenge.

kind regards     philippe