For a number of reasons, Linux is significantly different from other operating systems. One of the ways in which it differs is that it is free. This makes including licensed media codecs very difficult, leading to reviewer complaints such as this one which appeared a while ago in the Wall Street Journal:

When I tried to play common audio and video files, such as MP3 songs, I was told I had to first download special files called codecs that are built into Windows and Mac computers. I was warned that some of these codecs might be “bad” or “ugly.”

For anyone not aware of the issues here, some media files such as MP3s use proprietary formats that you must pay to decode or play. When you buy Mac OS X or Windows, part of what you pay goes to pay that price, but you don’t pay anything for most Linux distributions. These codecs have been (potentially illegally) downloadable and legally purchasable for some time, but now Practical Technology is reporting that Canonical is making it easy for Ubuntu users to get them.

The main advantage of this is that reviewers and new users will be able to go directly to Canonical and purchase media playback software. Buying software like this is a model that customers are familiar with, so it should not seem strange. Of course, they may still not understand the real reasons why media playback support cannot be included for free, but at least they will know it is possible to make it work.

Not everything is right, though. My biggest concern is the price. If you buy both the codec pack and the DVD playback software, the price comes out to almost $90! $90 is just too high. This may not be something that Canonical has much control over, but who ever does have control should seriously consider the price. In the meantime, I hope that more hardware sellers start bundling these codecs in with Ubuntu on their PCs.

This move is certainly going in the right direction and may help to clear up a lot of users’ confusion, but it is far from perfect. If the whole pack was closer to $50 I would be a lot more enthusiastic about it.