Comment 19 for bug 723831

This was just discussed by the Ubuntu Technical Board, and unanimously (0 for, 5 against) declined. (Closing as "opinion", as I cannot set "wontfix" for the ubuntu-community state).

Ticking that box by default is by and large equivalent to always installing the software by default, as it would now require an informed decision to get only free software installed. We have always made some clearly stated concessions for hardware drivers (graphics, wlan) which http://www.ubuntu.com/project/about-ubuntu/licensing points out. But we unanimously feel that Flash does not at all fall into this category:

  * It is not required for most of the work you do with your computer, unlike a graphics driver.
  * There are free alternatives available.
  * We already make it easy to install non-free codecs and Flash plugin via totem's/Firefox' codec/plugin installer, which gives you free alternatives and also has both a more proper context as well as more space to explain the situation and alternatives than the single tick box in the installer (which is also already overloaded with different purposes) could ever convey.

This is just a line which we all strongly feel we should not cross.