[Fwd: [Bug 163675] mpeg situation not explained in documentation]

[Karsten Wade]

I'm punting this over to the marketing side.  The consensus on #fedora-
docs is this:

a) Fedora has not done a very good job of loudly advertising why we
don't distribute certain codecs, although we do spend a lot of time
addressing the topic in other ways.

b) The complaint about multimedia is in every poorly researched review.

c) This is the latest stick to beat Fedora with.

d) An official rebuttal/comment on the situation might help.

Any ideas on this?

I appreciate Greg's approach of pushing the situation back on other
people.  Our only failing is probably in not being loud and present
enough with our comments/rebuttals.  Maybe the desktop background by
default should be an explanation of "why no MP3 support".

I don't mind including something useful in the release notes, and in
fact had intended to with an update.  This bug report approaches making
a few good points, buried as it is in so much bile.

I'll likely ignore updating this bug except to CLOSE it when the time
comes.  I've used up the ounce of civility I brewed for this situation
on this wannabe-customer.

-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [Bug 163675] mpeg situation not explained in documentation
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 14:33:48 -0400
Please do not reply directly to this email. All additional
comments should be made in the comments box of this bug report.

Summary: mpeg situation not explained in documentation

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=163675

------- Additional Comments From [e-mail]  2005-07-21 14:33 EST -------
What a cop out.

First of all: just because your customers aren't paying you doesn't mean you can
treat them however you like.

Secondly: it would have been no trouble at all to include one tiny paragraph in
the release notes explaining all this. You make it sound like it would have cost
a team of writers months to do this.

Thirdly: this is not some obscure little "non-free, closed-source, illegal and
patent-infringing" piece of software. Missing MPEg audio playback functionality
is a sizable drawback for many people. Even Windows plays back MP3 files by
default. So do almost all other Linux distributions. It is something people
rightly expect, and at the very least it should be explained to them (by the
creators of the product, not by having them perform Google queries) that it is
missing, and why.

Lastly: don't blame me for this for not filing a bug about it during the test
process. As if nobody could have figured this out otherwise. And as if the
situation hasn't been the same for many previous versions.

What un unworthy response... Pity...

[Marc Wiriadisastra]

Is this suggestions to be done straight away as in announcing it or are we
planning on making it big enough to hit people over the head with in FC5?

The only thing I can suggest is adding it to the front page of Firefox
when you start it up after the install.  It can say it there.  Or maybe
when you find links to download the .iso's.  Put a what fedora does and
doesn't do section.  What type of os it is regarding the fact that its imo
semi-bleeding edge.

[Karsten Wade]

On Fri, 2005-07-22 at 08:46 +0800, Marc Wiriadisastra wrote:
> Is this suggestions to be done straight away as in announcing it or are we
> planning on making it big enough to hit people over the head with in FC5?

Both?
> The only thing I can suggest is adding it to the front page of Firefox
> when you start it up after the install.  It can say it there.  Or maybe
> when you find links to download the .iso's.  Put a what fedora does and
> doesn't do section.  What type of os it is regarding the fact that its imo
> semi-bleeding edge.

Then that would be a "Note" that appears at the top of the release
notes.  I agree with the concept of what you suggest, it certainly makes
it fairly obvious.  However, I don't know about the idea of making the
first, biggest, and most regular information that readers see be a
message about MP3 patents.

We reorganized the release notes to be more friendly for a default
Firefox page.  Not all the changes are in FC4, but the basic idea was to
add a "what's new" section and make the table of contents more visible
to show what information is in the release notes.  The "what's new"
contains links to useful information, and would be a natural place to
put such a note.

- Karsten

[Karsten Wade]

On Thu, 2005-07-21 at 21:40 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote:
> We reorganized the release notes to be more friendly for a default
> Firefox page.  Not all the changes are in FC4, but the basic idea was to
> add a "what's new" section and make the table of contents more visible
> to show what information is in the release notes.  The "what's new"
> contains links to useful information, and would be a natural place to
> put such a note.

I probably would have done this straight away, it was hard to feel
motivated with such a bug report in front of me. ;-)

http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/fc4/errata/index.html#sn-why-no-...

(link should be live within the hour)

If anyone out there who is not @redhat.com has an opinion to share on
this bug report, I wouldn't mind if the user was better made to
understand the meaning of community.  In all its lovely senses. :)

- Karsten

[Paul W. Frields]

On Fri, 2005-07-22 at 02:12 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-07-21 at 21:40 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote:
> > We reorganized the release notes to be more friendly for a default
> > Firefox page.  Not all the changes are in FC4, but the basic idea was to
> > add a "what's new" section and make the table of contents more visible
> > to show what information is in the release notes.  The "what's new"
> > contains links to useful information, and would be a natural place to
> > put such a note.
>
> I probably would have done this straight away, it was hard to feel
> motivated with such a bug report in front of me. ;-)
>
> http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/fc4/errata/index.html#sn-why-no-...
>
> (link should be live within the hour)
>
> If anyone out there who is not @redhat.com has an opinion to share on
> this bug report, I wouldn't mind if the user was better made to
> understand the meaning of community.  In all its lovely senses. :)

I'm happy to pitch in here; I didn't post to the bug report because I
felt I couldn't have been as generous as you were. :-)  Now that I have
a hold on my temper, would you like a comment in the bug or just here in
the forum?

[Nicu Buculei]

Karsten Wade wrote:
> I'm punting this over to the marketing side.  The consensus on #fedora-
> docs is this:
>
> a) Fedora has not done a very good job of loudly advertising why we
> don't distribute certain codecs, although we do spend a lot of time
> addressing the topic in other ways.
>
> b) The complaint about multimedia is in every poorly researched review.
>
> c) This is the latest stick to beat Fedora with.
>
> d) An official rebuttal/comment on the situation might help.
>
> Any ideas on this?

I believe the best thing to do is what the original poster suggested in 
Bugzilla:
"It would also be good (although I realise that this is the wrong place 
for that) if stubs were installed for the missing components which 
explain the situation. This has been done for xmms, but I think that's 
the only place. The other affected programs just display very generic 
and uninformative error messages, or they are just mysteriously missing."

I expect if such a stub is made as a gstreamer plugin, the majority of 
multimedia apps in Fedora will be covered.

If the situation is clarified at the application level then I find 
enough for release notes to mention it in a secondary, non-prominent place.

BTW, as this is a marketing list, when we will have and advertise some 
mind-blowing multimedia applications based on free codecs to fill this void?

[Jef Spaleta]

On 7/21/05, Karsten Wade  wrote:
> a) Fedora has not done a very good job of loudly advertising why we
> don't distribute certain codecs, although we do spend a lot of time
> addressing the topic in other ways.

Scapegoat sez, "Patent royalties are the pressure sensitive landmines
of software development. Field mice don't have to worry about it. But
a herd of sheep do."

Getting the message out about the dangers of patent royalties
succinctly in a way that encourages people to get informed about the
larger issues where foss and patents intersect is a pretty tough nut.
Any explanation inevitably has to touch on the project's commitment to
make sure 3rd parties can use and re-distribute all the provided
software without getting additional permission from individual patent
holders.  I don't know how you say that in a way that make a
compelling read... I fell asleep while trying to write this paragraph
and again when reading over it for mistakes.

-jef

[Thilo Pfennig]

Am Donnerstag, den 21.07.2005, 13:28 -0700 schrieb Karsten Wade:
> Any ideas ?

What clearly should take place is heavy collaboration, promotion and
contribution to:

* OGG/Theora Vorbis xiph.org
* ...

Yes, OGG is better than MP3. Yes, Fedora is supporting OGG over MP3. But
right now I don't see very much of emphasizing the freedom the user
gets. From some point of view Fedora is MORE free than Debian.

Fedora should always include the newest Vorbis tools, that are available
in order to bring their users the newest (and exciting!) technology.

So if Fedora would come in a box one should put this newest support
things on it.

I have just learned about Apples iLive (http://www.apple.com/ilife/ )
thing. Why not promote something similar but Fedora provides it for no
cost!? (i know we are not there right now, but somehwere we have to
start)