On Apr 7, 2005 12:42 PM, Anand Babu ab@gnu.org.in wrote:
,----[ Ramanraj K ramanraj.k@gmail.com ] | [ Re: Workshop on TRIPS Treaty and Computer Programs at UoM ] | participants may be people totally new to free software. We have | received about 100 Ubuntu CD sets, which we will distribute to the | participants to introduce them to free software. `---- Though Ubuntu team did a very nice job, they call their distribution (operating system) as Linux and not as GNU/Linux. It concerns me to promote them.
-- Anand Babu GPG Key ID: 0x62E15A31 Personal Blog [http://freedom.freeshell.org] The GNU Operating System [http://www.gnu.org]
On the URL http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ubuntu/licensing/document_view and under the section The purpose of the "restricted" component they say
The Ubuntu team recognizes that many users have vital hardware in their computer that requires drivers that are currently only available in binary format. We urge all hardware vendors to insist that their suppliers provide open source drivers for their components, but we recognise that in some cases binary drivers are the only way to make your hardware work. As a result, Ubuntu includes several of these drivers on the CD and in the repository, clearly separated from the rest of the software by being placed in the restricted component.
Binary drivers are a poor choice, if you have a choice. Without source code, Ubuntu cannot support this software, we only provide it for users who require it to be able to run the Free Software we provide in main. Also, we cannot make binary drivers available on other architectures (such as the Mac or IPAQ) if we don't have the ability to port the software source code ourselves. If your hardware is fully supported with open source drivers you can simply remove the restricted component, and we would encourage you to do so.
If closed source code drivers are a bad choice after all, why include them in the first place ?
The reason they provide that closed source drivers are required to be able to run "Free Software" they provide in the main is as lame an excuse as one can get.