Fedora/RH policies sometimes suck

[Les Mikesell]

Alan Cox wrote:
>> No-one is answering the question.  Forget the OpenOffice fixation.  The 
>> question is 'How do we know which of Fedora's packages have been altered in 
>> this way?'  OpenOffice would be one, but there are others.  Totem comes to 
>> mind, and I'd guess that there are lots more.  As Les remarked, it could be 
>> indicated in the package name.
> 
> rpm -q --changelog
> 
> can tell you an awful lot about a package
> 
>> As for how it would help, we could then decide for ourselves whether we need 
>> to go to the source and build our own packages.
> 
> If you are a non-US citizen yes. Otherwise knowing merely makes you
> liable for triple damages and other penalties...

How would knowing that the thing named java in fedora isn't really java 
make you liable for anything?  Or do you think that downloading the real 
thing that Sun distributes freely puts you in enough jeopardy to justify 
the bizarre contortions you have to do to make it work?  The same 
applies to the drivers like Nvidia's that the owners would like to have 
distributed but it is RH/fedora's choice not to.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com