Corporate pressure

[Peter Backlund]

Mike A. Harris wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Peter Backlund wrote:
> 
> 
>>So, someone at Red Hat should contact robla at real.com (_duncan in #helix, 
>>irc.helixcommunity.org) for further investigation. Meanwhile, I'm going 
>>to start working on, and submit to QA, a specfile for the package.
> 
> 
> http://fedora.redhat.com/about
> 
> "The goal of The Fedora Project is to work with the Linux
> community to build a complete, general purpose operating system
> exclusively from open source software."
> 
> Therefore, shipping any proprietary or binary only software in 
> Fedora Core or Fedora Extras is right out totally.

That was never the intention.

> Shipping software which is open source but which enables the use
> of proprietary plugins easily and is not very useful without 
> those proprietary plugins, does not exactly promote "a general 
> purpose operating system exclusively from open source software", 
> and so that idea would completely go against the stated goals of 
> the Fedora Project.

The Helix Player has the capabilities to play MP3, MPEG-4, AMR 
(narrowband codec), Ogg Vorbis and H.263 in the OSI-approved parts of 
the code base. So I wouldn't exactly call it useless without the RA/RV 
plugins. But sure, the thing that distinguishes it from other media 
players is of course RA/RV.

> By keeping Fedora Project clear both of proprietary software
> *and* of dependancies on proprietary software for useful
> features, helps to grow interest and motivation in others to
> design, develop, implement open source solutions, so that there
> are open source alternatives tomorrow for the proprietary
> software solutions that exist today that don't have 100% open 
> source replacements.
> 
> I for one would oppose the inclusion of any proprietary software
> into the Fedora Core or Extras, or any software (open source or
> otherwise) which exists purely to enable layering of proprietary
> software or plugins on top of that.
> 
> That doesn't stop people from going and downloading the stuff 
> anyway if they want to use it.  Please don't try to change the 
> project's mandated goals.

Point taken. Perhaps the Helix Player should go entirely into a 
repository outside of Fedora Core/Extras. It might be a bit more 
difficult to get permission to host RA/RV, but certainly not impossible.

/Peter