
> No, I use the software over the internet and the four Freedoms were not
> given to me as a user until recently, therefore was not Free Software,
> because Free Software garants its users the four freedoms.

You're accessing a remote system that was running on someone else server.
So under such conditions, you would never be a licensee under copyright.


> In Germany there have been legal consequences for some companies for
> violating MP3 patents. There are several parties (mainly in the USA
> and EU) who claim to hold MP3 patents. So a considerable amount of the
> world's computer users can't legally use Free Software to decode MP3
> files. Though the patent situation of MP3 is a bit weird, it's not a
> "stupidity" of the USPTO.

They can claim what whatever they want. Germany is a signatory of Bern
Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works that outlaws
Software Patents. If German companies had such problems that was a result
of poor legal defence strategies, or poor law aplication. But we shouldn't
let ourselves get bullied by such illegal abuses.


> There are some players which play FLAC and Ogg Vorbis. A device with
> high ratings is e.g. the SanDisk Sansa Clip+.

Maybe there're but I'ver never saw a singleone for sale, or heard any of
the many peoplo that I know and are aware of this saying they saw one.
 
> Some major music labels won't do that. It took years and some efforts of
> really well selling music store to even convince them to use MP3.

Canonical Isn't working with music labels. But with 7digital.

 
> I was not talking about the freedom of Ubuntu, but rather about the
> attitude of Canonical which dictates the future and development
> direction of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu is a mostly free Software GNU/Linux distribution. As I told in other
message in special conditions some compromises maybe necessary, and Ubunbu
enables that in a reasonably way (it doesn't push it down users throat). So
I disagree with you on that too.


> I simply don't feel comfortable with their attitude.

Their attitude is of being usefull to people who want to use Free Software.
Keep private, some stuff they made and feel should be private, and not
being shortsighted enough to belive that people will stop need and wanting
to use non-free software because. People will only stop using proprietary
software if they understand the problems it causes and if we enable them to
choose quality Free Software alterantives (we are making progress in both
and Ubuntu as been helping).



with my cumpliments
Diogo
-- 



