Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron Beta Released

I'm a bit unsure about the benefits of wubi. I admit I probably haven't given the topic enough consideration, but at first thought giving Windows users an easier time seems hurtful for free software. After all, it will encourage people to keep using non-free software. I say that because people using windows will be encouraged to keep their windows and using wubi for installing GNU/Linux, which runs right from windows' file system. So I expect that people meeting free software through that path is more likely to always keep using non-free software, as opposed to the ones who have a free system installed on a different partition.

Of course, one may argue that stuff like wubi makes it easier for people who would never use free software to at least try some. But if our ultimate goal is to have everyone using free software only, is that being hepful in the long term? That's a question that I never fully understood the answer, maybe someone here can shed me some light.

As you can notice, I do believe in free software as the best mean of software distribution, I'm a little tired of discussing that; so I hope people will talk about my question rather than my premisse that the ultimate goal is to have people only using free software.

My biggest issue with Ubuntu is that I can't browse the web with firefox and edit a document with emacs at the same time on my 2.0Ghz 512 MB RAM laptop. Maybe I just need to suck it up and get a more upscale machine.