Why are proprietary packages in main?

[Tom H]

On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 6:47 PM Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users
<ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 2020-07-28 at 18:29 +0200, Tom H wrote:
>> On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 2:08 PM Avinash Sonawane <rootkea at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu says "Main -
>>> Canonical-supported free and open-source software." but non-free
>>> packages like amd64-microcode and intel-microcode are in main.
>>>
>>> Why is that? Has the meaning of "main" changed? (From that same
>>> ubuntu help page it seems that these blob packages should be in
>>> "restricted".)
>>
>> amd64-microcode's a free binary blob and, given that it's firmware,
>> it's it's in main.
>
> Don't confuse
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software
> ("The right to study and modify a computer program entails that source
> code—the preferred format for making changes—be made available to users
> of that program.")
> with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeware .

Had I meant FOSS, I would've written FOSS.