Re: [gNewSense-users] Songbird freedom

[Jason Self]

On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 7:46 PM, Nuno Miguel dos Santos Baeta
<address@hidden> wrote:
> Unfortunately I've
> been unable to determine the kind of freedom of Songbird.  Could
> someone help me?

http://wiki.songbirdnest.com/Docs/SONGBIRD_SOFTWARE_LICENSE_AGREEMENT

It appears to be a hybrid with parts under the GPL and other parts
under a proprietary license.

In short, I'd avoid Songbird because the license makes Songbird
Add-Ons non-free. The FSF considers free software recommending or
including non-free plugins or other software to be A Bad Thing. (Not
including or recommending non-free software is one of their
requirements for a free software distro, and seems to be one of the
reasons that Icecat was created as a completely ethical alternative to
Firefox.)

> BTW, If I successfully convert him, six persons will be using
> GNU/Linux (more precisely gNewSense or Ubuntu when I fail to install
> gNewSense), which means more than 10% of people are using GNU/Linux in
> my department :-)

Ubuntu is not a free software distro, FYI.