F8(1) vs multimedia production(0)

[Antonio Olivares]

> Thanks, its always nice to hear when people praise the very
> hard work I do
> to relate the truth to people, instead of just telling them
> what they want
> to hear. You don't want to hear the truth, you are free
> to ignore me.
> 
I will not ignore you, although most of the reasons are the same and they won't change :(

> 
> > 1.  You need to put up with the crappy apps you
> already have
> >
> 
> Actually i didn't say that. I pointed out exactly where
> the technical issues
> are that can be address. I'm not going to lie to you or
> anyone. ffmpeg is a
> problem.. it will continue to be a problem until it has
> support for runtime
> detectable plugins.  I can't wish the problem away, or
> yell it away or hold
> my breath until its fixed..or threaten to move to another
> distro.. none of
> that solves the actual technical problem. All I can do is
> find and encourage
> developers make use of a more flexible framework.
> 
> > 2.  You need to use your valuable time on this earth
> to code and not
> > actually use the computer -- to help us with our
> crappy forced-licensing
> > ideology which is never going to work anyway btw
> >
> 
> Someone has to code this stuff, the code doesn't
> magically fall from the
> code tree. Yes... you are absolutely right.. people's
> time is valuable..
> developer time is the most precious of the resources that
> we have. We need
> more of it.  And I will heartily thank anyone who uses
> their time to help
> develop a robust video editing application which uses
> gstreamer as its
> audio/video framework so we could get reasonable support
> for raw dv video
> and theora editting in the distro.  Which reminds me I
> should go on to the
> pitivi development lists and do some massive amounts of ego
> stroking to
> encourage them to do more work.
>
This is where I think you can say okay, we will alleviate this problem by not including these applications or making a Fedora spin ***without the free stuff that is useless for many users***, and that way you the end users can do what you want, but we will not be responsible if you get sued or end up in jail because of violating so-so patent(s).  
> 
> > It's patently absurd when the infrastructure of
> Red Hat
> > itself is in fact RUNNING THE USERS OFF!
> >
> 
> It's not that we aren't sympathetic. I very much
> doubt that anyone likes the
> software patent situation. Legal issues suck, but I'm
> not going to lie to
> you about it. We will avoid some patent encumbered code
> based on Red Hat's
> legal council because we are not interested in creating a
> situation where we
> increase the legal risks for anyone. The legal risk of
> people like
> downstream developers who base their work on Fedora. God
> forbid we
> accidently cause a legal problem for an embedded developer
> showing off some
> sort of mp3 capable device in Germany such that they are
> handed cease and
> desist orders at the conference they are attending.
>
> For reference:
> http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=8723
> http://news.softpedia.com/news/Police-Raids-51-CeBIT-Booths-For-Patent-Violations-80362.shtml
>
This is good to know thanks for pointing it out.  Since I do not live in Germany or Great Britian(UK) I can see the threats, but I hope *crosses fingers* that we can avoid such threats here in the US.  
> 
> 3 years running now, CeBit has seen German police raids
> over mp3 patent
> infringement.  It would be really nice to ignore this, and
> make some
> simple-minded claims that the problem is strictly a problem
> in the US and to
> beat Red Hat up about it...but I can't, Fedora as a
> project can't, because
> we have a larger international base and a growing number of
> downstream
> distributions which make use of our tech. If we
> accidentally created a legal
> problem for someone over a/v patents, I would feel far
> worse than I do about
> hearing that I've lost users because we are in their
> opinion overly cautious
> about breaking the law.
To not break the law, you can avoid a great deal of work without providing the stuff that is truly free so that users have the power to get what they want and build from source or build a different Fedora spin to meet the needs of those users that do not want crippled versions of stuff that works with somethings, but not all things that users want/need to play.  
> 
> It's not just the home user that we care about nor just
> Red Hat's legal
> risks as a sponsor. We care about the legal risks to our
> global Fedora
> community, including the ones who might be doing
> development in Germany or
> elsewhere where software patents lurk. Or currently we have
> a small
> situation with trademarks on OpenOffice.org that is Brazil
> specific that we
> need to work through so our Ambassadors and users there
> avoid a problem.
Alexandre should help here.  He's with the FSFA in Latin America.  He can flex his muscle(s) over there and give us a report.  
> 
> Now as a user you can either live with that or you
> can't. If you can, and
> are interested in video production, make a pledge to work
> with me to find a
> way to bring a robust gstreamer based video application
> forward for everyone
> to make use of.
> 
> If you can't, then yes you are going to be happier
> using a distribution
> other distros take a much more cavilier approach these
> issues. We are not
> going to be cavilier with regard to legal risks. We take
> them seriously.
> 
> 
> >
> > Let's see how many more you run off.
> >
> 
> Let me be clear. I do not need...nor do I desire for every
> single person to
> be running Fedora. Users are not pogs... they are not
> pokemon...we do not in
> fact have to catch them all. Does it help me or Fedora to
> lie to Gene and
> attempt to keep him as a user? All I can do is be honest
> about what the
> technical issues are..ffmpeg...and what the potential
> solutions
> are..gstreamer. If he still chooses to distro shop instead
> of working on
> solving the problem, I'm not going to run after him
> with pretty, empty
> promises that someone else is going to do the work for him.
> Someone has to
> do the work, or it's not going to get done. The pitivi
> developers would
> probably welcome some more manhours.
> 
> The success of Fedora is not predicated on killing off any
> of the several
> hundreds of distros listed by distrowatch and starving them
> of users. Nope
> not the goal, not even slightly important. All we need to
> have is enough
> users, and enough contributors, and enough developers, to
> sustain and drive
> active development of the open source stack. Even with Gene
> moving over, I
> feel confident we have enough users... I don't need to
> be greedy. Okay well
> I do need to be somewhat greedy... I want more than my fair
> share of the
> right users.  I am not going to go out of my way to court
> users as
> consumers....especially in the area of video production,
> because I don't
> have a lot to offer them. But I will go out of my way to
> court
> contributors...especially in the area of video production,
> because Fedora
> needs their help and I think we can offer them a lot in
> terms of supporting
> their efforts to move video production forward and
> integrate it into the
> default gnome stack. I know several of the existing fedora
> contributors with
> experience with the gnome and gst code bases that would
> probably encourage
> such an effort and a new contributor to lead the way.
> 
> 
> -jef
> -- 

Thank you for sharing your side as I see you have made many good points, but still we are at a loss because many users here are loyal to Fedora and would like to not encounter troubles along the way.  I belive Les' solution is one of the best if not the best given so far with respect to building non-free stuff/brining it in to Fedora.

The truth hurts, but thank you again for being sincere with your explanations and examples.  

Regards,

Antonio