4:08 p.m.
Hello,
I've found this YUM repository aiming to replace the original
Fedora/RedHat KDE with a complete version (will all important
features enabled and lots of extra programs):
http://kde-redhat.sourceforge.net/
KDE support in Fedora leaves much to be desired in terms of
completeness. Couldn't some of this stuff be merged with
Fedora Core and the rest put in Fedora Extras? Except for the
few things with license or patent problems, of course.
--
// Bernardo Innocenti - Develer S.r.l., R&D dept.
\X/ http://www.develer.com/
4:12 p.m.
Bernardo Innocenti wrote:
Hello,
I've found this YUM repository aiming to replace the original
Fedora/RedHat KDE with a complete version (will all important
features enabled and lots of extra programs):
http://kde-redhat.sourceforge.net/
KDE support in Fedora leaves much to be desired in terms of
completeness. Couldn't some of this stuff be merged with
Fedora Core and the rest put in Fedora Extras? Except for the
few things with license or patent problems, of course.
Last I asked upstream KDE, many of the license or patent problematic
parts of KDE are not easily splittable into tiny loadable modules, thus
necessitating rebuilding large parts of KDE in order to enable them.
Nothing has stopped those developers from submitting spec patches to FC
KDE or additional packages to Extras if they don't have legal problems.
Warren Togami
wtogami(a)redhat.com
9:20 a.m.
Bernardo Innocenti wrote:
I've found this YUM repository aiming to replace the original
Fedora/RedHat KDE with a complete version (will all important
features enabled and lots of extra programs):
I've looked at the web site, but there's not a lot of information there.
What important features and extra programs am I missing?
--
========================================================================
Ian Pilcher i.pilcher(a)comcast.net
========================================================================
10:34 a.m.
Bernardo Innocenti wrote:
> I've found this YUM repository aiming to replace the original
> Fedora/RedHat KDE with a complete version (will all important
> features enabled and lots of extra programs):
I've looked at the web site, but there's not a lot of information there.
What important features and extra programs am I missing?
Also, I've been unable to locate SRPM files or .spec files for the RPM
packages they publish.
11:21 a.m.
Felipe Alfaro Solana wrote:
>Bernardo Innocenti wrote:
>
>>I've found this YUM repository aiming to replace the original
>>Fedora/RedHat KDE with a complete version (will all important
>>features enabled and lots of extra programs):
>
>I've looked at the web site, but there's not a lot of information there.
>What important features and extra programs am I missing?
Also, I've been unable to locate SRPM files or .spec files for
the RPM
packages they publish.
It's all in the yum/apt repo:
http://apt.kde-redhat.org/apt/kde-redhat/all/SRPMS.*
-- Rex
1:05 p.m.
> Also, I've been unable to locate SRPM files or .spec files
for the RPM
> packages they publish.
It's all in the yum/apt repo:
http://apt.kde-redhat.org/apt/kde-redhat/all/SRPMS.*
Great. Thanks!
10:46 a.m.
Ian Pilcher wrote:
Bernardo Innocenti wrote:
> I've found this YUM repository aiming to replace the original
> Fedora/RedHat KDE with a complete version (will all important
> features enabled and lots of extra programs):
I've looked at the web site, but there's not a lot of information there.
What important features and extra programs am I missing?
It depends greatly on which os release you're using, but mostly adding
in dependancies from Extras, livna.org (and a few not in either yet) to
get extra features. A short list (off the top of my head) includes:
* arts,kdemultimedia: multimedia goodies, since Fedora either legally or
ethically(non-opensource) can't/won't. Examples, lame(mp3),
libmad(mp3), xine-lib support. (all thanks to livna.org)
* kdepim: crypto(gpgme/gpg-agent, see
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/136533), gnokii, libmal support
* kdelibs,kdegraphics: JPEG2000(jasper), OpenEXR support
* kdelibs,kdebase,kdenetwork: mDNSResponder support
* kdenetwork: openslp, meanwhile support
* kdebase: dbus-qt/hal support
-- Rex
12:12 p.m.
Hi
It depends greatly on which os release you're using, but mostly adding
in dependancies from Extras, livna.org (and a few not in either yet)
to get extra features. A short list (off the top of my head) includes:
* arts,kdemultimedia: multimedia goodies, since Fedora either legally
or ethically(non-opensource) can't/won't. Examples, lame(mp3),
libmad(mp3), xine-lib support. (all thanks to livna.org)
* kdepim: crypto(gpgme/gpg-agent, see
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/136533), gnokii, libmal support
* kdelibs,kdegraphics: JPEG2000(jasper), OpenEXR support
* kdelibs,kdebase,kdenetwork: mDNSResponder support
* kdenetwork: openslp, meanwhile support
* kdebase: dbus-qt/hal support
The Livna repository can continue to provide the restricted components.
It would great if you can file a bug report for the rest.
regards
Rahul
3:14 p.m.
Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> It depends greatly on which os release you're using, but
mostly adding
> in dependancies from Extras, livna.org (and a few not in either yet)
> to get extra features. A short list (off the top of my head) includes:
> * arts,kdemultimedia: multimedia goodies, since Fedora either legally
> or ethically(non-opensource) can't/won't. Examples, lame(mp3),
> libmad(mp3), xine-lib support. (all thanks to livna.org)
> * kdepim: crypto(gpgme/gpg-agent, see
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/136533), gnokii, libmal support
> * kdelibs,kdegraphics: JPEG2000(jasper), OpenEXR support
> * kdelibs,kdebase,kdenetwork: mDNSResponder support
> * kdenetwork: openslp, meanwhile support
> * kdebase: dbus-qt/hal support
The Livna repository can continue to provide the restricted components.
It would great if you can file a bug report for the rest.
Unfortunately, most of these enhancements require a *replacement*
package, ie, a new arts, kdepim, kdelibs, kdebase, etc, which neither
Extras or Livna can (or wants to) do (for good reason).
AFAIK, Livna has a nice (xine-lib'd) kdemultimedia-extras package already.
-- Rex
3:37 p.m.
Hi
Unfortunately, most of these enhancements require a *replacement*
package, ie, a new arts, kdepim, kdelibs, kdebase, etc, which neither
Extras or Livna can (or wants to) do (for good reason).
Does that mean that enhancements to proprietary components cannot be
refactored into sub packages and requires whole scale replacement of the
entire KDE set as the kde-redhat project does?. Pardon my ignorance
here but that seems pretty unreasonable to me. If thats true then
continuing that project seems the only way to provide the functionality.
If there are other improvements that can be made in the Fedora KDE
packages without introducing proprietary components or would help in
refactoring these components into a independant repository, do feel free
to report them
regards
Rahul
4:15 a.m.
On Wed, 2005-08-17 at 15:14 -0500, Rex Dieter wrote:
Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>> It depends greatly on which os release you're using, but mostly adding
>> in dependancies from Extras, livna.org (and a few not in either yet)
>> to get extra features. A short list (off the top of my head) includes:
>> * arts,kdemultimedia: multimedia goodies, since Fedora either legally
>> or ethically(non-opensource) can't/won't. Examples, lame(mp3),
>> libmad(mp3), xine-lib support. (all thanks to livna.org)
>> * kdepim: crypto(gpgme/gpg-agent, see
>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/136533), gnokii, libmal support
>> * kdelibs,kdegraphics: JPEG2000(jasper), OpenEXR support
>> * kdelibs,kdebase,kdenetwork: mDNSResponder support
>> * kdenetwork: openslp, meanwhile support
>> * kdebase: dbus-qt/hal support
>
>
> The Livna repository can continue to provide the restricted components.
> It would great if you can file a bug report for the rest.
Unfortunately, most of these enhancements require a *replacement*
package, ie, a new arts, kdepim, kdelibs, kdebase, etc, which neither
Extras or Livna can (or wants to) do (for good reason).
AFAIK, Livna has a nice (xine-lib'd) kdemultimedia-extras package already.
It was my impression that KDE was going to be moving over to using
gstreamer soon. Wouldn't this end up replacing xine-lib?
Rodd
--
"It's a fine line between denial and faith.
It's much better on my side"
5:15 a.m.
On Thu, 18 Aug 2005 19:15:45 +1000, Rodd Clarkson wrote:
> AFAIK, Livna has a nice (xine-lib'd) kdemultimedia-extras
package already.
It was my impression that KDE was going to be moving over to using
gstreamer soon. Wouldn't this end up replacing xine-lib?
What does it matter? For current FC4, the used KDE version uses a libxine
based arts plugin, and the kdemultimedia-extras package from Livna
provides that in order to enhance FC4 KDE video players.
If a future KDE version changes to a different multimedia backend, well,
then hopefully the gstreamer-plugins-extras-nonfree package (or whatever
it will be called) will be ready by that time.
5:31 a.m.
On Thu, 2005-08-18 at 12:15 +0200, Michael Schwendt wrote:
On Thu, 18 Aug 2005 19:15:45 +1000, Rodd Clarkson wrote:
> > AFAIK, Livna has a nice (xine-lib'd) kdemultimedia-extras package already.
>
> It was my impression that KDE was going to be moving over to using
> gstreamer soon. Wouldn't this end up replacing xine-lib?
What does it matter? For current FC4, the used KDE version uses a libxine
based arts plugin, and the kdemultimedia-extras package from Livna
provides that in order to enhance FC4 KDE video players.
If a future KDE version changes to a different multimedia backend, well,
then hopefully the gstreamer-plugins-extras-nonfree package (or whatever
it will be called) will be ready by that time.
Why it matters is that this thread actually started with someone talking
about a yum repo that replaces KDE on Fedora, and discussion was about
what was missing in Fedora's KDE that this KDE had.
Requests were made be Fedora developers to list the missing features to
see if they could be added to Fedora (or whether they were non-free).
Someone pointed out that xine-lib (non-free) was missing and I commented
that this may not be an issue for newer versions of KDE (in Fedora)
because it looks like KDE will be moving to gstreamer.
Rodd
--
"It's a fine line between denial and faith.
It's much better on my side"
5:42 a.m.
Rodd Clarkson wrote:
On Thu, 2005-08-18 at 12:15 +0200, Michael Schwendt wrote:
>On Thu, 18 Aug 2005 19:15:45 +1000, Rodd Clarkson wrote:
>
>
>
>>>AFAIK, Livna has a nice (xine-lib'd) kdemultimedia-extras package
already.
>>>
>>>
>>It was my impression that KDE was going to be moving over to using
>>gstreamer soon. Wouldn't this end up replacing xine-lib?
>>
>>
>What does it matter? For current FC4, the used KDE version uses a libxine
>based arts plugin, and the kdemultimedia-extras package from Livna
>provides that in order to enhance FC4 KDE video players.
>
>If a future KDE version changes to a different multimedia backend, well,
>then hopefully the gstreamer-plugins-extras-nonfree package (or whatever
>it will be called) will be ready by that time.
>
>
Why it matters is that this thread actually started with someone talking
about a yum repo that replaces KDE on Fedora, and discussion was about
what was missing in Fedora's KDE that this KDE had.
Requests were made be Fedora developers to list the missing features to
see if they could be added to Fedora (or whether they were non-free).
Someone pointed out that xine-lib (non-free) was missing and I commented
that this may not be an issue for newer versions of KDE (in Fedora)
because it looks like KDE will be moving to gstreamer.
Rodd
the dbus-qt/hal stuff?
5:42 a.m.
Hi,
Someone pointed out that xine-lib (non-free) was missing and I
commented
that this may not be an issue for newer versions of KDE (in Fedora)
because it looks like KDE will be moving to gstreamer.
And if FC keeps up with this (almost) insane blocking of the likes of
libdvd and mp3, they'll be as pointless as totem currently is.
Would it be an idea for the likes of the packages FC cannot include in
the US to be available in countries where they are allowed, but have it
so US people can block them? At least that way, when I (in the UK)
install FC, I don't have to go on a hunt for xmms-mp3 and then use
freshrpms for xine.
It's a real ache to have to go hunting, especially when the likes of
SuSE and Mandriva don't put that sort of stopper on things. I can
understand the legal point of view and RH having to protect itself
against just about anyone who wants to make a quick buck without merit
(such as SCO), but going that way can mean that possibly OOo would be
removed due to being able to import/export MS proprietary formats.
TTFN
Paul
--
"Logic, my dear Zoe, is merely the ability to be wrong with authority" -
Dr Who
5:54 a.m.
Paul F. Johnon wrote:
Hi,
>Someone pointed out that xine-lib (non-free) was missing and I commented
>that this may not be an issue for newer versions of KDE (in Fedora)
>because it looks like KDE will be moving to gstreamer.
>
>
And if FC keeps up with this (almost) insane blocking of the likes of
libdvd and mp3, they'll be as pointless as totem currently is.
Read http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/fc4/errata/#sn-why-no-mp3.
Fedora is a completely Free and open source platform. Totem plays all of the open source
codecs that gstreamer supports. This has been discussed multiple times previously. You
cannot violate laws just because you disagree with the rationale and where it can be
fought in a meaningful way it already happens*
regards
Rahul
* *http://tinyurl.com/ce6se*
5:57 a.m.
Hi,
>And if FC keeps up with this (almost) insane blocking of the
likes of
>libdvd and mp3, they'll be as pointless as totem currently is.
>
Read http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/fc4/errata/#sn-why-no-mp3.
Fedora is a completely Free and open source platform. Totem plays all
of the open source codecs that gstreamer supports. This has been
discussed multiple times previously. You cannot violate laws just
because you disagree with the rationale and where it can be fought in
a meaningful way it already happens*
I never said to break the law - that's just dumb! What I am suggesting
is that it should be possible for RH to have something like country
specific versions which are closed to those not allowed. Block by IP or
something like that.
TTFN
Paul
--
"Logic, my dear Zoe, is merely the ability to be wrong with authority" -
Dr Who
6:04 a.m.
Paul F. Johnon wrote:
Hi,
>>And if FC keeps up with this (almost) insane blocking of the likes of
>>libdvd and mp3, they'll be as pointless as totem currently is.
>>
>>
>>
>Read http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/fc4/errata/#sn-why-no-mp3.
>
>Fedora is a completely Free and open source platform. Totem plays all
>of the open source codecs that gstreamer supports. This has been
>discussed multiple times previously. You cannot violate laws just
>because you disagree with the rationale and where it can be fought in
>a meaningful way it already happens*
>
>
I never said to break the law - that's just dumb! What I am suggesting
is that it should be possible for RH to have something like country
specific versions which are closed to those not allowed. Block by IP or
something like that.
I do not know the legal implications of a block by IP method. I am
pretty sure this has already been considered by legal. Morever that
would mean endorsing a codec or technology that is legally restricted
and not completely open source in every region. My opinion is that we
should not do that even if we can. Third party repositories can do
whatever they want.
regards
Rahul
6:01 a.m.
Am Donnerstag, den 18.08.2005, 11:42 +0100 schrieb Paul F. Johnon:
> Someone pointed out that xine-lib (non-free) was missing and I
commented
> that this may not be an issue for newer versions of KDE (in Fedora)
> because it looks like KDE will be moving to gstreamer.
And if FC keeps up with this (almost) insane blocking of the likes of
libdvd and mp3, they'll be as pointless as totem currently is.
Would it be an idea for the likes of the packages FC cannot include in
the US to be available in countries where they are allowed, but have it
so US people can block them? At least that way, when I (in the UK)
install FC, I don't have to go on a hunt for xmms-mp3 and then use
freshrpms for xine.
I would prefer something like:
"Hey, get this super cool Fedora Add-on-CD with Non-Free-Packages from
livna.org -- just put it in your drive after installing Fedora and all
important Non-Free-Software is going to be installed".
It's a real ache to have to go hunting, especially when the likes
of
SuSE and Mandriva don't put that sort of stopper on things.
In Suse 9.3 only real-player is able to play MP3 -- you have to hunt for
MP3-Support in other Apps (totem, KDE,...) there, too. (Yes, I know,
they provide it on their own website -- but installing it is not more
complicated than "rpm -ivh livna-release-1.2.3.rpm" and "yum install
xmms-mp3 xine mplayer" [or similar commands for other Repos]).
CU
thl
6:05 a.m.
Hi
I would prefer something like:
"Hey, get this super cool Fedora Add-on-CD with Non-Free-Packages from
livna.org -- just put it in your drive after installing Fedora and all
important Non-Free-Software is going to be installed".
That amounts to contributory infringement and is illegal.
regards
Rahul
6:27 a.m.
Am Donnerstag, den 18.08.2005, 16:35 +0530 schrieb Rahul Sundaram:
Hi
>I would prefer something like:
>"Hey, get this super cool Fedora Add-on-CD with Non-Free-Packages from
>livna.org -- just put it in your drive after installing Fedora and all
>important Non-Free-Software is going to be installed".
>
>
That amounts to contributory infringement and is illegal.
I'm not sure I understand you fully. If Red Hat/Fedora says something
like above: Sure, that is illegal.
But if some Add-On-Repos would provide such a CD-ISO as add-on in their
Repo and if this CD is well known to everyone ("hey, go and get that
Fedora-Add-On-CD, without it Fedora is not fully functional") it would
solve the problem for most people in the freeworld more easily.
CU
thl
7:29 a.m.
On 8/18/05, Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora(a)leemhuis.info> wrote:
But if some Add-On-Repos would provide such a CD-ISO as add-on in
their
Repo and if this CD is well known to everyone ("hey, go and get that
Fedora-Add-On-CD, without it Fedora is not fully functional") it would
solve the problem for most people in the freeworld more easily.
Logic fault:
if its well known to everyone there would be no need to point to it by
anyone else.
Semantics aside and without touching the policy issue that Sundaram
brought up about whether its the right policy decision, no... redhat
as the managing entity cannot willfully point people to a collection
of software they know is infringing..even if its public knowledge by
other means. It doesn't matter if this makes logical sense, we are
talking about US law here.. logic does not apply. Legal risk is legal
risk, the entity who is liable has to evaluate the situation and
determine where the line is as to what behavior brings unacceptable
risk. Since redhat is the one exposed to the legal liability at the
moment as the managing entity, its very difficult to make any
compelling argument that second guesses their legal opinion as an
outside layperson, simply because our assets are not on the line.
-jef"is waiting for someone in the community to offer to indemnify
redhat against all liability for contributory infringement"spaleta
2:07 p.m.
Jeff Spaleta wrote:
On 8/18/05, Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora(a)leemhuis.info> wrote:
>But if some Add-On-Repos would provide such a CD-ISO as add-on in their
>Repo and if this CD is well known to everyone ("hey, go and get that
>Fedora-Add-On-CD, without it Fedora is not fully functional") it would
>solve the problem for most people in the freeworld more easily.
>
>
Logic fault:
if its well known to everyone there would be no need to point to it by
anyone else.
Semantics aside and without touching the policy issue that Sundaram
brought up about whether its the right policy decision, no... redhat
as the managing entity cannot willfully point people to a collection
of software they know is infringing..even if its public knowledge by
other means. It doesn't matter if this makes logical sense, we are
talking about US law here.. logic does not apply. Legal risk is legal
risk, the entity who is liable has to evaluate the situation and
determine where the line is as to what behavior brings unacceptable
risk. Since redhat is the one exposed to the legal liability at the
moment as the managing entity, its very difficult to make any
compelling argument that second guesses their legal opinion as an
outside layperson, simply because our assets are not on the line.
-jef"is waiting for someone in the community to offer to indemnify
redhat against all liability for contributory infringement"spaleta
What I keep hearing in this thread is that RedHat's position as the
"managing entity" of Fedora is holding Fedora back in the area of
multimedia.
Don't get me wrong; most Fedora work gets done by people with redhat.com
email addresses. But it is true that RedHat represents a nice *central*
target for a legal suit, which is just what patent holders like. It's
so old-school and comfortable to have some central entity, with money,
to attack. How might the promised Fedora Foundation change this?
Personally, I'd be happy if the installation offered the ability to add
entries to yum.repos.d (a big hurdle for newbies) which was not limited
to, but did include Livna, accompanied by the expected stern warnings
about respecting your local laws.
Adding repositories is not a big deal for us old hands; It's just a
PITA, nothing more. But the newbie is already overwhelmed by switching
OSes. To them, "Fedora just doesn't support multimedia". All
discussions of "feature parity" aside, when's the last time you saw an
Ogg Theora stream on Yahoo's site?
4:55 p.m.
On Sun, Aug 21, 2005 at 02:07:54PM -0500, Steve Bergman wrote:
so old-school and comfortable to have some central entity, with
money,
to attack. How might the promised Fedora Foundation change this?
It won't.
Personally, I'd be happy if the installation offered the ability
to add
entries to yum.repos.d (a big hurdle for newbies) which was not limited
to, but did include Livna, accompanied by the expected stern warnings
about respecting your local laws.
Americans have strange ideas about their laws and the extent they cover.
Sometimes to good effect (eg corruption laws) sometimes to bad. For a US
based body to advocate that a non-US citizen exercise their legal rights if
those rights conflict with "US law" is an area that requires careful legal
thought. Remember that US "freedom of speech" is political speech - so the
right to complain about the existing US policies and fight them is protected
not the right to tell people how to violate them.
Alan
7:41 p.m.
On Sun, 2005-08-21 at 17:55 -0400, Alan Cox wrote:
On Sun, Aug 21, 2005 at 02:07:54PM -0500, Steve Bergman wrote:
> so old-school and comfortable to have some central entity, with money,
> to attack. How might the promised Fedora Foundation change this?
It won't.
> Personally, I'd be happy if the installation offered the ability to add
> entries to yum.repos.d (a big hurdle for newbies) which was not limited
> to, but did include Livna, accompanied by the expected stern warnings
> about respecting your local laws.
Americans have strange ideas about their laws and the extent they cover.
Please be careful with the sweeping generalizations of a class of
people simply based nationality.
It's not fair and it is not appropriate.
Thanks,
-sv
7:43 p.m.
On Sun, 2005-08-21 at 20:41 -0400, seth vidal wrote:
On Sun, 2005-08-21 at 17:55 -0400, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 21, 2005 at 02:07:54PM -0500, Steve Bergman wrote:
> > so old-school and comfortable to have some central entity, with money,
> > to attack. How might the promised Fedora Foundation change this?
>
> It won't.
>
> > Personally, I'd be happy if the installation offered the ability to add
> > entries to yum.repos.d (a big hurdle for newbies) which was not limited
> > to, but did include Livna, accompanied by the expected stern warnings
> > about respecting your local laws.
>
> Americans have strange ideas about their laws and the extent they cover.
Please be careful with the sweeping generalizations of a class of
people simply based nationality.
the word 'on' here ^
-sv
4:34 a.m.
On Sun, Aug 21, 2005 at 08:41:36PM -0400, seth vidal wrote:
> Americans have strange ideas about their laws and the extent
they cover.
Please be careful with the sweeping generalizations of a class of
people simply based nationality.
Fair comment I should have said "America has"
Alan
4:49 a.m.
On Mon, 2005-08-22 at 05:34 -0400, Alan Cox wrote:
On Sun, Aug 21, 2005 at 08:41:36PM -0400, seth vidal wrote:
> > Americans have strange ideas about their laws and the extent they cover.
>
> Please be careful with the sweeping generalizations of a class of
> people simply based nationality.
Fair comment I should have said "America has"
Being British you probably should have said "America have ..." because
corporations are plural (SCNR ;-)).
Nils
--
Nils Philippsen / Red Hat / nphilipp(a)redhat.com
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- B. Franklin, 1759
PGP fingerprint: C4A8 9474 5C4C ADE3 2B8F 656D 47D8 9B65 6951 3011
8:45 a.m.
Alan Cox wrote:
On Sun, Aug 21, 2005 at 08:41:36PM -0400, seth vidal wrote:
>>Americans have strange ideas about their laws and the extent they cover.
>
> Please be careful with the sweeping generalizations of a class of
>people simply based nationality.
Fair comment I should have said "America has"
How about "American legislators and courts?"
--
========================================================================
Ian Pilcher i.pilcher(a)comcast.net
========================================================================
1:59 p.m.
Alan Cox wrote:
On Sun, Aug 21, 2005 at 02:07:54PM -0500, Steve Bergman wrote:
Americans have strange ideas about their laws and the extent they cover.
Sometimes to good effect (eg corruption laws) sometimes to bad. For a US
based body to advocate that a non-US citizen exercise their legal rights if
those rights conflict with "US law" is an area that requires careful legal
thought. Remember that US "freedom of speech" is political speech - so the
right to complain about the existing US policies and fight them is protected
not the right to tell people how to violate them.
No argument from me. So could DRM actually help us, here? Could
RedHat/Fedora offer country specific versions with some sort of regional
DRM in place, so that the rest of the world doesn't have to suffer from
shortcomings here in the USA? Of course, with the source being
available people could subvert it, but surely, at some point, RedHat
should be considered "not responsible". After all, OSS code distributed
by RedHat currently could no doubt be modified to do illegal things. On
the other hand, there is at least one wireless driver that Andrew can't
include in the vanilla kernel because the souce could be modified by the
user to violate FCC regulations.
BTW, nobody has called me on it, but my original post, upon re-reading,
seems more critical of RedHat than was intended. Retroactive appologies
for that.
-Steve
5:39 a.m.
On Mon, Aug 22, 2005 at 01:59:32PM -0500, Steve Bergman wrote:
should be considered "not responsible". After all, OSS
code distributed
by RedHat currently could no doubt be modified to do illegal things. On
It undoubtedly is by some people just like any other tool. As to DRM question
I don't know. From a philosophical point of view its taking away freedoms,
but it also has the advantage of making people walk into legal walls they
otherwise can't see and thus more aware of the restrictions on them.
Right now Fedora is one size fits most jurisdictions. It isn't just US laws
that have to be considered. Germany for example has strong rules on
'games that glorify war' (ie violent games). That is one reason bzflag was
pushed out to extras.
The challenge is to find the right balance between respecting values and
rules globally (so people can use Fedora freely all over the world) and
not turning into Farenheit 451.
the other hand, there is at least one wireless driver that Andrew
can't
include in the vanilla kernel because the souce could be modified by the
user to violate FCC regulations.
Its not included (atheros) because the radio end is binary only. Nothing
to my understanding stops it being included if open, but the FCC requires
the original hardware vendor makes such devices tamperproof and the vendor
interpreted this as "not open source". I believe the BSD folks are very
close to shipping a reliable reverse engineered pure open source atheros
driver.
There are a variety of solutions to the problem even for chip vendors (one
is providing wireless settings that are signed so the chip only takes
vendor provided sets.
Alan
8:57 a.m.
Steve Bergman wrote:
Adding repositories is not a big deal for us old hands; It's just a
PITA, nothing more. But the newbie is already overwhelmed by
switching OSes. To them, "Fedora just doesn't support multimedia".
All discussions of "feature parity" aside, when's the last time you
saw an Ogg Theora stream on Yahoo's site?
Yeah, streaming media is the worst of it.
Ogg Vorbis is a fine format to "rip, mix and burn", and its what I
use for ordinary listening -- even if I'm on Windows. With a good set
of headphones (digital USB) I can hear the difference between Ogg @ 200k
and the common MP3 @ 128k, and definitely Ogg @ 128k is better than MP3
@ 128k. Recently I noticed that I could tell the difference between
listening to the CD and Ogg @ 200k, which pushes for FLAC, a free
lossless format that's quite comparable to ALAC and other commercial
competitors.
I still make 64k MP3's to download to my flash player, but there's
nothing like Live365 in Ogg Vorbis land. However, Vorbis is widely
supported these days -- years ago I used to argue with an activist
friends that the difference between putting an Orbis stream online and
no stream at all was infinitesimal, but a year later it was supported
by popular media players in Windows.
The disturbing development these days are formats like MP3Pro and
AAC3 which use Spectral Band Replication to throw out the highs and then
reconstruct fake highs from the low. These are particularly attractive
if you're aiming for the "beer commercial" sound of modern FM radio and
have the audio processing chain to match. The sound is superficially
attractive at low bit rates, but is atrocious if you listen carefully
-- needless to say, a whole new set of legal barricades has been built
against open source implementation of these standards.
-----------
I'd argue, however, that "positive propaganda" is the right
strategy here too: if RH (and much of the OS community) takes the
principled stand of providing a free media stack, it ought to put a
little bit of energy into promoting free media formats -- for instance,
it would be nice to see a web site promoting the Ogg Vorbis streams that
are out there, just as there are sites promoting the SBR heresy...
http://www.tuner2.com/
9:19 a.m.
Hi
I'd argue, however, that "positive propaganda" is the right
strategy here too: if RH (and much of the OS community) takes the
principled stand of providing a free media stack, it ought to put a
little bit of energy into promoting free media formats -- for
instance, it would be nice to see a web site promoting the Ogg Vorbis
streams that are out there, just as there are sites promoting the SBR
heresy...
http://www.tuner2.com/
That does seem like a good idea to me. If you got other areas that we
can improve the the promotion of free media formats, do post to the
fedora-marketing list.
regards
Rahyk
4:18 p.m.
New subject: OGG support [was Re: KDE RedHat project]
On Mon, 2005-08-22 at 19:49 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
Hi
>
> I'd argue, however, that "positive propaganda" is the right
> strategy here too: if RH (and much of the OS community) takes the
> principled stand of providing a free media stack, it ought to put a
> little bit of energy into promoting free media formats -- for
> instance, it would be nice to see a web site promoting the Ogg Vorbis
> streams that are out there, just as there are sites promoting the SBR
> heresy...
>
> http://www.tuner2.com/
>
That does seem like a good idea to me. If you got other areas that we
can improve the the promotion of free media formats, do post to the
fedora-marketing list.
I'll tell you what else would be very useful here.
A site with simple, easy to follow instructions on how to get OGG
formats playing on other platforms, and preferably in these platforms
default players.
One of the biggest sticking points I've had with getting people to even
try OGG formats is getting their platform (usually OS X) to be able to
support this format.
Having a place where people could be pointed to that tells/shows them
what to do and also has the links to the software that need (hopefully
in small, easy to download bits) would make it a lot easier to get
people to try (and use) vorbis.
As and example, I've tried to get my government in Australia to use OGG
formats for parliamentary needs, but the sysadmin just tells me it's too
hard to install on some platforms and that they will stick with
proprietary formats (and no government should use these for information
distribution) because people just have these installed on their systems.
(Strangely, comments from me that the formats they support aren't even
supported by the manufacturers on my system seem to fall on deaf ears).
Being able to say to these people, go to this page and follow the simple
instructions and you'll be able to use OGG formats would make selling
the idea of OGG much, much easier.
Rodd
--
"It's a fine line between denial and faith.
It's much better on my side"
4:56 p.m.
New subject: OGG support [was Re: KDE RedHat project]
Rodd Clarkson wrote:
On Mon, 2005-08-22 at 19:49 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>Hi
>
>
>
>> I'd argue, however, that "positive propaganda" is the right
>>strategy here too: if RH (and much of the OS community) takes the
>>principled stand of providing a free media stack, it ought to put a
>>little bit of energy into promoting free media formats -- for
>>instance, it would be nice to see a web site promoting the Ogg Vorbis
>>streams that are out there, just as there are sites promoting the SBR
>>heresy...
>>
>>http://www.tuner2.com/
>>
>>
>>
>That does seem like a good idea to me. If you got other areas that we
>can improve the the promotion of free media formats, do post to the
>fedora-marketing list.
>
>
I'll tell you what else would be very useful here.
A site with simple, easy to follow instructions on how to get OGG
formats playing on other platforms, and preferably in these platforms
default players.
And simple has to mean trivially simple. Click here, click there (with
demo screenshots). No more than five clicks or so. Any more would
scare off the target audience, which I will operationally define as the
average CompUSA/Best Buy customer (or employee for that matter). This
would leave the majority, if successful, with a feeling of
accomplishment, and a working ogg player. Anything more difficult would
only allow a greater portion of already savvy users of Windows and Mac
platforms to make the jump, only to find that "no one provides content
in ogg formats".
Another text oriented FAQ would only clog things up more than they
already are. The users, assuming they were even interested in ogg, have
to find the site first. Ideally, it would be linked from the front page
of microsoft.com, yahoo.com, google.com, or msn.com. (Excuse me, but I
just got an email that says I might have won a million dollars and I
need to go read it. It could be important! Gotta go! ;-)
-Steve
4:59 p.m.
New subject: OGG support [was Re: KDE RedHat project]
Rodd Clarkson wrote:
Being able to say to these people, go to this page and follow the
simple
instructions and you'll be able to use OGG formats would make selling
the idea of OGG much, much easier.
Rodd
I assume here that we are just talking about ogg audio formats here ...
This page would be a start:
http://www.vorbis.com/software.psp
On there is a plethora of ogg compatible software for many platforms.
In my experience on Win32, WinAmp plays ogg just fine natively. It has
done so for *years*.
The only problem is Windows Media Player chokes on ogg. WMP is awful ...
unfortunately it is the default player :[
There is a DirectShow plugin that should allow WMP to do ogg but I
haven't had much luck with it ... then again, I haven't had much luck
with WMP playing much.
There also seems to be a Quicktime plugin to do ogg on Win32 and OS X
... that might solve things for our Apple and Windows friends all in one
swell foop.
/Mike
5:59 p.m.
New subject: OGG support [was Re: KDE RedHat project]
Rodd Clarkson wrote:
On Mon, 2005-08-22 at 19:49 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>Hi
>
>
>> I'd argue, however, that "positive propaganda" is the right
>>strategy here too: if RH (and much of the OS community) takes the
>>principled stand of providing a free media stack, it ought to put a
>>little bit of energy into promoting free media formats -- for
>>instance, it would be nice to see a web site promoting the Ogg Vorbis
>>streams that are out there, just as there are sites promoting the SBR
>>heresy...
>>
>>http://www.tuner2.com/
>>
>
>That does seem like a good idea to me. If you got other areas that we
>can improve the the promotion of free media formats, do post to the
>fedora-marketing list.
I'll tell you what else would be very useful here.
A site with simple, easy to follow instructions on how to get OGG
formats playing on other platforms, and preferably in these platforms
default players.
One of the biggest sticking points I've had with getting people to even
try OGG formats is getting their platform (usually OS X) to be able to
support this format.
Having a place where people could be pointed to that tells/shows them
what to do and also has the links to the software that need (hopefully
in small, easy to download bits) would make it a lot easier to get
people to try (and use) vorbis.
As and example, I've tried to get my government in Australia to use OGG
formats for parliamentary needs, but the sysadmin just tells me it's too
hard to install on some platforms and that they will stick with
proprietary formats (and no government should use these for information
distribution) because people just have these installed on their systems.
(Strangely, comments from me that the formats they support aren't even
supported by the manufacturers on my system seem to fall on deaf ears).
Being able to say to these people, go to this page and follow the simple
instructions and you'll be able to use OGG formats would make selling
the idea of OGG much, much easier.
Rodd
when somebody isn't able to play a video or audio i've ripped in ogg, i
usually point people to this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Media_help
it could probably use some improvement (like screenshots and detailed
guides).
em.
11:36 a.m.
On Sun, August 21, 2005 3:07 pm, Steve Bergman said:
What I keep hearing in this thread is that RedHat's position as
the
"managing entity" of Fedora is holding Fedora back in the area of
multimedia.
Not really, just not embracing proprietary multimedia formats. It's a
question of priorities.
Don't get me wrong; most Fedora work gets done by people with
redhat.com
email addresses. But it is true that RedHat represents a nice *central*
target for a legal suit, which is just what patent holders like. It's
so old-school and comfortable to have some central entity, with money,
to attack. How might the promised Fedora Foundation change this?
Personally, I'd be happy if the installation offered the ability to add
entries to yum.repos.d (a big hurdle for newbies) which was not limited
to, but did include Livna, accompanied by the expected stern warnings
about respecting your local laws.
It would be good to make it easier to install yum repo entries; for
instance by just clicking on a web page link. The actual links wouldn't
have to be provided or even referenced by Fedora.
Adding repositories is not a big deal for us old hands; It's
just a
PITA, nothing more. But the newbie is already overwhelmed by switching
OSes. To them, "Fedora just doesn't support multimedia". All
discussions of "feature parity" aside, when's the last time you saw an
Ogg Theora stream on Yahoo's site?
There's a bit of a chicken and egg problem here. We need to create a
demand for free formats at the same time as creating a supply.
Cheers,
Sean
11:43 a.m.
On 8/22/05, Sean <seanlkml(a)sympatico.ca> wrote:
It would be good to make it easier to install yum repo entries; for
instance by just clicking on a web page link. The actual links wouldn't
have to be provided or even referenced by Fedora.
Create the more general mechanism for installing an rpm via a link,
securely.. and you get this feature without any extra effort for
repositories that provide reponame-release styled packages that
include repo definitions.
-jef
2:06 p.m.
On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 12:43:26 -0400, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
> It would be good to make it easier to install yum repo entries;
for
> instance by just clicking on a web page link. The actual links wouldn't
> have to be provided or even referenced by Fedora.
Create the more general mechanism for installing an rpm via a link,
securely..
With emphasis on "_securely_".
Just like you don't want to click a link and see an .exe file execute and
start downloading and installing something, you don't want automated
installation of Yum repositories. _Any_ repository out there could add
itself to your configuration with a single click and provide packages
which replace Core files. Adding real security in this area requires much
more than asking the user for confirmation. For now, adding Yum repo
entries with something like "rpm -ivh http://.../foo-release-4-1.noarch.rpm"
and letting Yum install the included GPG key should be easy enough even if
it implies that some users probably trust some repositories blindly,
because those users focus on simplicity instead of security.
2:26 p.m.
On 8/22/05, Michael Schwendt <fedora(a)wir-sind-cool.org> wrote:
With emphasis on "_securely_".
Yeah.. maybe i didn't stress that enough. The trick is definitely
"securely." I don't think I've yet seen any proposals that make
clicking on a link to install anything palatable in this regard.
-jef
3 p.m.
On Mon, August 22, 2005 3:06 pm, Michael Schwendt said:
With emphasis on "_securely_".
Just like you don't want to click a link and see an .exe file execute and
start downloading and installing something, you don't want automated
installation of Yum repositories. _Any_ repository out there could add
itself to your configuration with a single click and provide packages
which replace Core files. Adding real security in this area requires much
more than asking the user for confirmation. For now, adding Yum repo
entries with something like "rpm -ivh
http://.../foo-release-4-1.noarch.rpm"
and letting Yum install the included GPG key should be easy enough even if
it implies that some users probably trust some repositories blindly,
because those users focus on simplicity instead of security.
Would be nice to avoid the need for the command line. Wouldn't a simple
popup having a boilerplate warning and the description extracted from the
rpm be sufficient? If not, what else is needed? Remember this is about
generic rpm installation of any program, not just rpms containing repo
entries. I suppose there should be a more verbose warning message if the
rpm isn't signed with a trusted key but beyond that how much more "secure"
can you make it?
Sean
3:39 p.m.
On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 16:00:37 -0400 (EDT), Sean wrote:
Would be nice to avoid the need for the command line. Wouldn't
a simple
popup having a boilerplate warning and the description extracted from the
rpm be sufficient? If not, what else is needed?
At least one hurdle that makes it less easy. ;)
The simple click-click-click-to-add-a-repository bears just too many
risks, because its target group would _not_ verify painstakingly what will
be added to the system configuration.
Remember this is about
generic rpm installation of any program, not just rpms containing repo
entries.
Clicking onto a local *.rpm file opens the system-install-packages command
by default, which in turn prompts the user for the root password. That is
easy and dangerous enough. As soon as system-install-packages can access
the configured online repositories in order to resolve dependencies, what
else do you need?
I suppose there should be a more verbose warning message if the
rpm isn't signed with a trusted key but beyond that how much more "secure"
can you make it?
Theoretically, _much_ more secure, e.g. with fully relocatable packages
and a user-writable RPM database, so the user can install _some_ packages
without needing superuser privileges.
--
Michael Schwendt <mschwendt(a)users.sf.net>
Fedora Core release 4 (Stentz) - Linux 2.6.12-1.1398_FC4
loadavg: 1.02 1.14 0.92
2:36 p.m.
New subject: Make a periphery around the Core
On Sunday 21 August 2005 20:07, Steve Bergman wrote:
What I keep hearing in this thread is that RedHat's position as
the
"managing entity" of Fedora is holding Fedora back in the area of
multimedia.
Redhat being well-funded brings into being the potential for attacks that
would otherwise make no sense if it were someone else distributing Fedora.
So it seems to me reasonable they keep completely away from anything inviting
attack.
If Redhat want commercial 'should-really-be-licensed' stuff for Enterprise
they license it and it is distributed and paid-for accordingly. So there is
no real driver on Redhat to fix this for Fedora from the commercial side.
Not moaning about it, just noting it.
But of course the development and strong security update work make Fedora
attractive to rely on. It always seemed to me that the "Core" part of the
name invited the distribution to be built on externally, completely away from
Redhat, not in competition but in using Fedora as the 'upstream'. And what
do I read about on LWN....
http://www.blagblagblag.org/
''blag is a fedora core 3 based distribution, reduced to 1 cdrom and
supplemented by 200 additional packages.''
The 200 additional packages include mplayer and all the other goodies that
become explosive when mixed directly with Redhat's funding. (I have no
experience or relationship with blag).
So it seems to me the answer to this should be that Redhat go on as they need
to and the demand for the other stuff supports one or more wrapped Fedoras
that have it, completely outside Redhat and with no support from them other
than the general provisioning of Fedora Core.
-Andy
3:12 p.m.
New subject: Make a periphery around the Core
Andy Green <andy(a)warmcat.com> wrote:
On Sunday 21 August 2005 20:07, Steve Bergman wrote:
> What I keep hearing in this thread is that RedHat's position as the
> "managing entity" of Fedora is holding Fedora back in the area of
> multimedia.
Redhat being well-funded brings into being the potential for attacks
that
would otherwise make no sense if it were someone else distributing
Fedora. So it seems to me reasonable they keep completely away from
anything inviting attack.
I'd want to think they keep away from propietary formats (and software with
murky legal status) as a matter of principle, not because they might get
sued otherwise...
--
Dr. Horst H. von Brand User #22616 counter.li.org
Departamento de Informatica Fono: +56 32 654431
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria +56 32 654239
Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile Fax: +56 32 797513
11:12 a.m.
On Thu, 18 Aug 2005 20:31:40 +1000, Rodd Clarkson wrote:
On Thu, 2005-08-18 at 12:15 +0200, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Aug 2005 19:15:45 +1000, Rodd Clarkson wrote:
>
> > > AFAIK, Livna has a nice (xine-lib'd) kdemultimedia-extras package
already.
> >
> > It was my impression that KDE was going to be moving over to using
> > gstreamer soon. Wouldn't this end up replacing xine-lib?
>
> What does it matter? For current FC4, the used KDE version uses a libxine
> based arts plugin, and the kdemultimedia-extras package from Livna
> provides that in order to enhance FC4 KDE video players.
>
> If a future KDE version changes to a different multimedia backend, well,
> then hopefully the gstreamer-plugins-extras-nonfree package (or whatever
> it will be called) will be ready by that time.
Why it matters is that this thread actually started with someone talking
about a yum repo that replaces KDE on Fedora, and discussion was about
what was missing in Fedora's KDE that this KDE had.
Requests were made be Fedora developers to list the missing features to
see if they could be added to Fedora (or whether they were non-free).
Someone pointed out that xine-lib (non-free) was missing and I commented
that this may not be an issue for newer versions of KDE (in Fedora)
because it looks like KDE will be moving to gstreamer.
Doesn't change a thing at all. GStreamer in Core is reduced to the free
media formats. It can't play MP3, MPEG and others and needs a a non-free
plugins package for that.
Other functionality in KDE cannot be added via plugins, but must be
compiled in. That leads to the requirement of upgrading packages in Core
with custom packages provided in a non-free repository. Keeping the custom
KDE packages in sync with patches and security-fixes in Core's KDE is
rather boring and tiresome. And there are enough users who don't like it
when packages from Core are replaced/upgraded by a 3rd party repository.
4:10 p.m.
On Thu, 2005-08-18 at 18:12 +0200, Michael Schwendt wrote:
Doesn't change a thing at all. GStreamer in Core is reduced to
the free
media formats. It can't play MP3, MPEG and others and needs a a non-free
plugins package for that.
Other functionality in KDE cannot be added via plugins, but must be
compiled in. That leads to the requirement of upgrading packages in Core
with custom packages provided in a non-free repository. Keeping the custom
KDE packages in sync with patches and security-fixes in Core's KDE is
rather boring and tiresome. And there are enough users who don't like it
when packages from Core are replaced/upgraded by a 3rd party repository.
Actually, the beauty of gstreamer is that is not only supports non-free
formats, but they can be added as plugins.
In fact, gstreamer has done this so nicely that they actually compile
free and non-free stuff into two different packages by default so that
distros that don't want the non-free stuff included don't have to do
anything oher than not use the non-free stuff.
If people using fedora core want the non-free stuff, then all they need
to do is following the yum repo instructions at gstreamers website and
then install it using yum. This works fine making it quite easy to add
all the non-free stuff you mention above without the need for a
recompile.
xine-lib, on the other hand, does need a recompile which makes adding
support any codec awkward. However, it's worth noting that gstreamer is
working on supporting xine-lib so that it can also play any codecs
xine-lib supports.
Keep in mind that gstreamer goes way beyond what xine-lib does.
xine-lib is really just for playing various codecs. gstreamer is a
multimedia framework useful for any application the reads or writes
multimedia codecs.
Rodd
--
"It's a fine line between denial and faith.
It's much better on my side"
4:52 p.m.
On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 07:10:26 +1000, Rodd Clarkson wrote:
On Thu, 2005-08-18 at 18:12 +0200, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> Doesn't change a thing at all. GStreamer in Core is reduced to the free
> media formats. It can't play MP3, MPEG and others and needs a a non-free
> plugins package for that.
>
> Other functionality in KDE cannot be added via plugins, but must be
> compiled in. That leads to the requirement of upgrading packages in Core
> with custom packages provided in a non-free repository. Keeping the custom
> KDE packages in sync with patches and security-fixes in Core's KDE is
> rather boring and tiresome. And there are enough users who don't like it
> when packages from Core are replaced/upgraded by a 3rd party repository.
Actually, the beauty of gstreamer is that is not only supports non-free
formats, but they can be added as plugins.
Which is what I wrote above ("non-free plugins package").
In fact, gstreamer has done this so nicely that they actually
compile
free and non-free stuff into two different packages by default so that
distros that don't want the non-free stuff included don't have to do
anything oher than not use the non-free stuff.
If people using fedora core want the non-free stuff, then all they need
to do is following the yum repo instructions at gstreamers website and
then install it using yum. This works fine making it quite easy to add
all the non-free stuff you mention above without the need for a
recompile.
The KDE used for that would be a stripped-down one, however, and at the
dangers of repeating myself, you cannot link a KDE app like Juk against a
library like libtunepimp if it depends on an mp3 decoder. GStreamer
plugins only gives you part of the fun.
--
Michael Schwendt <mschwendt(a)users.sf.net>
Fedora Core release 5 (Development) - Linux 2.6.12-1.1485_FC5
loadavg: 1.00 1.19 1.20
6843
days inactive
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days old
47 comments
22 participants
participants (22)
-
Alan Cox -
Andy Green -
Bernardo Innocenti -
dragoran -
Emily Brantley -
Felipe Alfaro Solana -
Horst H. von Brand -
Ian Pilcher -
Jef Spaleta -
Michael Schwendt -
Michael Wiktowy -
Nils Philippsen -
Paul A Houle -
Paul F. Johnson -
Rahul Sundaram -
Rex Dieter -
Rodd Clarkson -
Sean -
seth vidal -
Steve Bergman -
Thorsten Leemhuis -
Warren Togami