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Ubuntu 8.04 rant: Getting MP3s to play is too fundamental to be left up to geekery
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Ubuntu should let new users who click on a restricted-media file know that there is indeed a way to play said file, even if they haven't yet opened up their repositories to non-free software. The way the 8.04 LTS edition is set up, it seems you must KNOW you need a restricted driver — and indeed must know what a driver, a repository, the fact that MP3 is an non-free, hostile-to-open-source media format and what a restricted driver or codec is — before the system will prompt you to install one. Only giving helpful information to people who really don't need it is just not ... helpful. Ubuntu, by the very nature of its mission, popularity and target audience (new users of free, open-source software), must be held to a different, higher standard. Educate users by all means, but don't hobble their machines and drive them away before they've even gotten their FOSS feet wet.
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