Fedora's way forward

[Jeff Spaleta]

On 3/29/06, Michael J Knox <michael at knox.net.nz> wrote:
> Nor do I think telling someone "There are already other distributions
> out there which does this if this is really the only thing you want" is
> the correct way to tackle, what is, a real world issue.

Nor is conveniently ignoring the fact that the underlying issue is the
very thorny messy nature as to software patents and how software
patents interact to restrict the freedoms and or rights typically
granted in FOSS software.. freedoms that are essential to how foss
development is done. To continue to try to discussion the issues
surrounding supporting mp3 and other similar media technologies like
they are just another piece of proprietary software code that can
re-developed from scratch to fill a compatibility need is an egregious
effort at miscommunication as to where the problems actually lie.

Software patents very much constrain how collaborative development in
an open source model can be done and I am very confident that certain
people in this discussion of aware of that constrain and I continue to
find it bemusing at the stance they are taking about trying to
incorporate patent encumbered technologies into a software project
which  relies on the very freedoms and rights embodied in FOSS
copyright licensing to enable the massively collaborative development
effort that makes this project possible at all.

This whole discussion is unconstructive and was intiated by a post,
while well intentioned, was in fact using the wrong assumptions with
regard to the patent situations.
Once ESR recognized that the patent situation was more complicated
than he had assumed this conversation should have been tabled until he
made a personal effort to become more informed as to the patent issue.
Instead he's chosen to continue in a discussion predicated on
misinformation which he himself brought to this discussion. Quite
frankly I'm very disappointed in his continued participation in this
discussion because he continues to mislead people into believing that
this is a simple matter of open source reverse engineering of a
proprietary format..which it is not.  I can not stress enough that the
issue of software patents is vitally important and its impact on the
freedoms and rights afforded to the community under FOSS copyright
licensing  can not be ignored when making arguments about weight
pragmatic access to functionality against idealist views towards FOSS
software distribution.

In my personal opinion, the original post from  ESR was less informed
than most OSNews editorials I read, and that is a particularly low bar
to meet.

-jef