(no subject) was "FAQ on

[Antonio Olivares]

> Software Patents"
To: 
    " encouragement  and advice for using Fedora.Community assistance" <fedora-list at redhat.com>
In-Reply-To: <50762.216.239.89.138.1250567653.squirrel at altern.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

> Sorry, I've deleted the "FAQ on
> Software Patents" started by Rahul
> Sundaram. so I'll have to answer in a new thread.
> 
You could have waited a while for someone else to reply to that thread, and begin from there :), or you were too anxious to reply!
> 
> Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> 
> > From time to time, the same questions come up on MP3
> and other patent
> > related things and I have written up some answers at
> 
> > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Software_Patents
> 
> > If you have other related questions, feel free to ask
> and I will try to
> > answer them in the wiki. Note that I am not a lawyer
> and this is not
> > legal advice.
> 
> This almost looks like a follow-up to the thread "What are
> Microsoft
> codecs?" that some real Linux lovers pretty much succeeded
> in trashing.
>
What do you mean trashing?  Could you explain a bit?
> 
> Unfortunately, the legal approach of Mr Sundaram still
> doesn't answer this
> enigma: if proprietary document formatting is just defining
> an awfully
> more complex and secret way of producing bold than
> <B></B>, then what are
> media codecs exactly?
>
Media codecs are *different* from encodings, xml stuff, and other proprietary layers added by Micro$oft to their products like word documents, excel files, powerpoint, etc.  

Media codecs are a different animal and not necessarily from Micro$oft alone.  Thankfully there are many media players that can play them and we have been told to install the good, the bad and the ugly and most of them can be played.  Sadly, not everything works, but this happens not only with Fedora.  A friend of mine pokes fun at me because I use Fedora linux and he tells me that nobody gives a sh*t about it and that is why it does not get attacked by hackers, virii, spyware, adware, trojan horse, ..., etc as much as Micro$oft Windows does.  This is hard to swallow, but I tell him that I like Fedora and Linux Distros in general and I dont mind the being in the 1% category.  He says 99% of the world uses M$ and you are in the rare type that uses Linux.  But I can live with that.  
> 
> But I'm sure all those who pretended that fedora-list
> wasn't the place to
> hold such a discussion will be happy to join in.
>
The discussion reminds me of a Bill Parcell's quote:

"This conversation is going nowhere", that he made sometime ago and was made into a Coors Beer commercial and it can be applied here.  As much as we discuss issues like this.  It does not make much of a difference.  I hate to say it, but it is true.  Fedora will not go against any laws that are established to protect intellectual property like patents, mp3, dvd playback, libdvdcss2, flash, ..., etc.  You name it.  Fedora will not deviate from what it has done in the past nor I see it happen in the future :)  
> 
> As for myself, I'll just suggest another subject for
> reflection. While
> most Fedora supporters here agree with Microsoft that
> market share is
> totally unimportant to Fedora, while Ubuntu LTS is released
> every second
> year and supported for 5 on servers, will Red Hat leave the
> road open to
> former Thawte CEO to get all the user base? Does Red Hat
> really think that
> Fedora users will buy RHEL because they dig GIMP 2.2 so
> much?
>
Whether they dig GIMP 2.2 does not make a difference as to whether users will buy RHEL.  That makes no sense to me and I am sure others.  RHEL is a subscription based distro(correct me if I am wrong).  You do not pay for the software, you are paying for the services provided by Red Hat.  
> 
> I had a fair chance to observe how non-profit organisations
> were run in
> the recent years and I really thought that a company on the
> Stock Exchange
> would be different. Now, I'm beginning to wonder.
>
Every company is different, but to each their own.  
> 
> -- 

Ubuntu LTS is something else and Fedora makes no apparent threat to it.  One is free to use whichever version of Linux that is out there.  If you like Ubuntu, then go for it.  I am not going to say anything bad about it.  Fedora is just a bit different from them. 

My $0.02

Regards,

Antonio