Web site suggestions.

[Gertjan Vinkesteijn]

Gertjan Vinkesteijn wrote:

> Robin Laing wrote:
>
>> Bevan C. Bennett wrote:
>>
>>> Robin Laing wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Even if the website were outside the US, Fedora as a US organization 
>>> cannot officially condone the illegal use of software. Private 
>>> repositories for these packages are easily discovered for those who 
>>> live somewhere without such laws or for those willing to personally 
>>> risk infringing use.
>>>
>>> Yes, it's perhaps stupid that certain corporations han maintain a 
>>> licensing stranglehold on certain popular codecs (even if they did 
>>> come up with them in the first place), and prevent them from being 
>>> used with GPL software.
>>>
>>> The very simple difference is that, because Windows is not 
>>> zero-price, Microsoft can absorb all of the licensing costs to these 
>>> other companies neccessary to legally include their algorithms in 
>>> the packaged product. Apple can (and does) do the same thing.
>>>
>>> A company could set themselves up selling properly licensed software 
>>> for mp3 and dvd use, but they could not use GPL code to create their 
>>> software without some interesting shenanigans, because the license 
>>> will prohibit the end result from being GPLd.
>>>
>>> The DVD issue is really annoying, but I just rip all my CDs to .ogg 
>>> and avoid the MP3 fiasco entirely. For a user without a pre-existing 
>>> collection, it's easy to use the included tools in Fedora to do 
>>> this. As an added benefit, not having any mp3s on your system makes 
>>> you less likely to be targeted as an alleged music pirate by large 
>>> overzealous acronyms.
>>
>>
>>
>> It is a shame that companies are doing all that they can to prevent 
>> the growth of Linux.  Look at Microsofts paying SCO to fight.  
>> (search for links)  DeCSS was developed for the purpose of playing 
>> DVD's on Linux.
>>
>> Even if the site cannot be officially sanctioned by Fedora and 
>> RedHat, it doesn't mean that it cannot be setup.  If you follow and 
>> search the Archives you can find most of these pachages mentioned.  
>> The problem is one single site.  Even when I typed in "yum update" 
>> yesterday, I ended up with a dependency error so yum is not perfect.  
>> Some sites have part of the package but you have to download libs 
>> from another site.  Of course a new user needs to set it up for all 
>> the "other" providers.  Especially the signatures for security.
>>
>> Ripping or even playing CD's could become a problem without codecs as 
>> the music industries want to put more copy protections on the CD's.  
>> I have even seen suggestions of using WMP 9 with DRM for protection.
>>
>> We may have one blessing if the EU forces Microsoft to not include 
>> Windows Media Player.  It would be nice if something similiar could 
>> occur in the US and Canada.
>>
> I agree, but do we have a working KaZaa like thing on the moment? Or a 
> 5.1 sound system? That is a booster with at least 4 speakers for 29 
> euro C-media card and 50 euro Trust speakerset
>
Apropos, I just signed up for Bugzilla, not so difficult to do, please join

-- 
Peace is everywhere
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