Why do we have non-free software in the official repositories?

Posted by fluteflute on Ask Ubuntu See other posts from Ask Ubuntu or by fluteflute
Published on 2011-02-11T08:25:24Z Indexed on 2011/02/11 15:33 UTC
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The Ubuntu wiki describes the "sections" of the official Ubuntu repositories as follows:

Main - Officially supported software.

Restricted - Supported software that is not available under a completely free license.

Universe - Community maintained software, i.e. not officially supported software.

Multiverse - Software that is not free.

I thought that software in the Ubuntu repositories had to be open source, however doesn't the description of the Multiverse directly contradicts this?

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