Ubuntu is not free.

[Felipe Figueiredo]

Joyce,

On Saturday 08 July 2006 10:55, meets at free.fr wrote:
> It seems to rely on GPL, because of the frequent words 'Gnu/Linux' on
> the Ubuntu website pages. It's true that it is also told about the

I think you are exagerating on the meaning of GNU/Linux. It does NOT mean that 
the whole OS your are using is GPL-like free. It just means, taxonomically, 
that is a system using GNU utils on top of a Linux kernel. It would differ 
from BSD, GNU/BSD, UNIX and Windows.

Even if it includes non-GPL code, it still deservers IMO the name GNU/Linux, 
because it stil has both.

[quoting from an earlier email]
> and the Ubuntu distribution pretends to 
> be a free software.

AFAICT Ubuntu's pretension is to be friendly enough to be usable by anyone.

That's probably why these firmware come bundled in the default kernel, because 
it is simpler for most people this way. I can't really picture my mother 
installing Ubuntu on her laptop, then discovering she has to "compile" some 
kind of "kernel" be cause some darn "firmware" is not "bundled". I marked the 
words shw would probably not recognize as part of her vocabulary. I am not 
saying she is stupid (let's get that VERY straight we're talking about my 
mother, before anyone get's funny ;-) ), but she doesn't really acre to learn 
that much about computers just to use some word processor, read emails and 
play card games. Heck, she doesn't even read english. How can she compile a 
kernel? 

Isn't people like her, the main goal of this distribution?

(In spite of her complaints, I installed ubuntu on her laptop, and she is 
doing well)

> You are a free software user, 

We all are software users. A free software user is not necessarily a free-only 
software users.  

If there is a driver for some hardware you have, you want to use it, after all 
you bought the piece. You said yourself you didn't compile a kernel in two 
years, yet you suggested that one who needs the proprietary firmware to do 
it.

BTW, IMO Ubuntu is free in the sense you say it should be, because YOU CAN 
alter it so that it doesn't has the firmware you so despise. You can't do 
that in a proprietary OS.

[quoting from a future email - how bold of myself to mess with time]

> I think it's nonsense to go through so many tiny details to avoid the
> principal problem, which is the respect of the free licenses and the
> spirit of the free software.

What license is being disrespected? In fact, this is exactly what GPL is for: 
if you need to insert *any* code into the kernel, you can. Ubuntu did.

I know you are picking on semantics: the problem is not the software included 
in itself, but the propaganda. You implied Ubuntu actually could include the 
proprietary firmware if it didn't adverstise as free, or create 
a "proper" "free" license. Would that really change anything?