Re: Fedora Desktop future- RedHat moves

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I think the main thing you're missing here is, no one really cares
whether Linux takes off on the desktop, in fact, Red Hat has said it
won't try because it's not cost effective.

An XP desktop costs around $200 whether it's added onto the cost of your
machine or not. Linux generally is between $50-100 from most that try to
sell it, but everyone goes for Windows anyways. You have to take several
steps to get it onto that machine, and you're still not going to be the
first choice because you're not what people are familiar with.

Red Hat charges in the thousands per machine for support to
corporations, that is where the money is, and by comparison, the home
desktop is chump change to them. That is without marketing costs,
without much of anything but a strong name in the corporate space.

Why should they pay around $15 per user for software the user didn't pay
for, just so they can play codecs that aren't relevant to the people
making them their money? They are available within the community, so
what is the issue? You'd rather Red Hat go out of business, just so it's
easier for you to play a damn audio file, or better 3D performance for
your games?

There is nothing you can really do about nvidia and ati, nothing but
reverse engineer things, or force them to open up the specs. There is
people trying to do that stuff, via Nouveau for Nvidia cards for
instance. There are even legal ways to get codecs (fluendo) and other
equally easy ways. Red Hat would rather fight to get those companies to
play ball right than just so "ok, we'll do it your way".

You run Linux today because Red Hat didn't say "ok, put it in, but be
gentle" to every corporation that told it to bend over. Today, Linux is
big business, and is really making strides even on the home desktop. 

You wouldn't even have heard of Linux though if it wasn't for RedHat.
Why should they go back on what has made them successful just because
the current batch of Linux newcomers can't figure out how to add a yum
repo or read docs? Then, that IS why Ubuntu is so popular today... but
again, at least they're providing mindshare, so they're doing their
part.

I just hope they're not harming the rest of us by making it justifiable
to not open their hardware to Linux devs, that they are teaching people
the right way to do things. I hope they are doing more to wise users to
better codecs - codecs that allow them to actually OWN the media, and
share it legally. 

I don't see much of that though, all I see are a bunch of Ubuntu guys
wandering out to the rest of the Linux community, and expecting Ubuntu's
flawed beliefs to be prevalent everywhere.

To answer your question, yes it does feel good being part of a minority
that asks "how are they able to get away with that?", and makes an
effort to ensure the industry can't rape users anymore. It speaks more
loudly for the ignorance of society at large that these things are even
an issue.

On Sat, 2008-04-26 at 10:25 -0700, Paul Shaffer wrote:
> Ah yes - the crux of the matter.  May we also recognize that the
> "faint of heart" also represents somewhere around 99% of "potential"
> users?  Even as some portion of the remaining 1% of the less faint
> seem unhappy?
> 
> Feel good belonging to such a small, elite minority that shrinks further every day?

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