Ubuntu's not GNU/Linux?

[Matthias-Christian Ott]

On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 12:45:18PM +0000, Diogo Santos wrote:
> 
> > 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.

Copyright is irrelevant for the definition of Free Software. The fact is
that I use a software and I don't have the four freedoms, therefore it's
proprietary software, because all software that doesn't give me the four
freedoms is by definition proprietary software. It doesn't matter if it
is kept private or is released to the public.

> > 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.

I don't know the contents of this convention, but I searched through and
didn't find the word patent. Could you please point me to relevant
passage? Because this would mean that I can break any software patent by
just referring to this convention.

> > 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.

According to one of the biggest online shops in the world, the product
sells quite well and has over 100 reviews there.

> > 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.

Well, than 7digital has to make the negotiations with the music labels.
According to their website they offer only MP3, AAC and WMA. Canonical
must be a big customer of them to get all 8 Million tracks in FLAC and
OGG, if 7digital has them as WAV or similar already.

> > 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.

Again: I was talking about the influence of Canonical on the project.
Please read my previous E-Mails carefully.

> > 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).

That means, you are suggesting to install proprietary Software on the
user's computer to convince the user that Free Software has the same
functionality and that proprietary software is a bad idea. That's
absurd!

Regards,
Matthias-Christian