Why is Fedora a multimedia disaster? - Here is why.

[Rahul Sundaram]

Dotan Cohen wrote:

> Correct. Ubuntu and XP (I can't talk for Vista), however, make an
> effort to inform the user how to set up the system to use the formats
> with the OS. Ubuntu goes so far as to ask "would you like me to
> install mp3 support?" right inside Amarok. Click Yes, and it goes and
> fetches the codec, installs it, and plays the file in under 45 seconds
> (I timed it the second time I did it). I understand that Fedora cannot
> legally do this.

We *can* legally do this. There are atleast two ways.

1) Include proprietary software by default which we don't want to do but 
not for legal reasons.

2) Optionally provide them a way to install software like how Firefox 
installs flash plugin. The MP3 codec from Fluendo has a patent license 
and is under the MIT X11 license and available for free for example.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureCodecBuddy

  Which is why I say don't push Fedora to the general
> user. IE, don't create a LiveCD.

You equate Live CD with a very specific use case while there are many 
others you have not considered at all.

>> There was a lot of talk about what can be a derived distro and still
>> keep the Fedora name, one of the ideas was that it have to be a subset
>> of Core + Extras, but I don't remember the conclusion.
> 
> I remember that. I also don't remember the conclusion (I don't think
> there was one) but it's irrelevant to this thread.

We did have a conclusion. If you include any combination of official 
Fedora packages and want to have to do a official release talk to Fedora 
Project Board. Unofficial releases can be done by anyone.  The fact 
tools like Pungi and live cd tools are part of Fedora and allow anyone 
to create Fedora variants easily is a very relevant part of this discussion.

Rahul