On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 18:16, Fritz Whittington wrote: > On or about 2004-01-13 03:50, Colin Charles whipped out a trusty #2 > pencil and scribbled: > > >On Mon, 2004-01-12 at 21:35, Adam Kosmin wrote: > > > > > >>I'll spell it out for you. By allowing this documentation to exist on > >>fedoranews.org, readers are basically being told "It's ok to use and > >>install non-FOSS software on your computer. In fact, we'll even show you > >>how!". > >> > >> > Perhaps I'm just a bit dense, but I would think all of us have the right > to install whatever software we wish on our *personal* computers, > whether it's FOSS, non-FOSS, or dental FLOSS, it's our decision. (The > question of whether the software was obtained legally or not is an > *entirely* different question, although it might be an important > question.) Secondly, since this is an individual right, and since > people probably have varying opinions on the details of this, I don't > think trying to convince others to think the same way you think is > apropriate in a *technical* help mailing list. There are plenty of > *-advocacy lists, probably one for FOSS. > > So if someone asks how to obtain/install an mp3 codec for mplayer, > that's a technical question that should get a technical answer. An > additional note that in some jurisdictions, a royalty is due to patent > holders is OK, but a sermon on FOSS is not on topic for this list, IMHO. > > Sorry to be so blunt, but if it's a pig, you just have to call it a > pig. :-) I agree, but I just wanted to add one more thing. I personally am a great FOSS-fan, and if I can avoid using non-FOSS software I do, but not to the degree of really loosing functionality. When a friend of mine started to try out Linux and found it wouldn't play his mp3-collection that was enough to make him give up on Linux, because that's one of the things he uses his pc for a lot. Of course I helped him solve the problem, anyone thinking I shouldn't have done so because mp3 is a non-FOSS format is in my not-at-all-humble-oppinion completely off track! Of course we should advocate using FOSS-software where it's possible and advisable, but come on! Sturla
