Re: multimedia licensing

[kwhiskers <kwhiskers@xxxxxxxxx>]

If this is the case, then this development seems dangerous for Linux'
long-term existence. Eventually, all countries will pass similar
legislation: Russia might join the EU; China is already becoming the
world's largest and most powerful industrial producer of consumer goods
(albeit likely also the world's largest bootlegger). What then?

It seems to me, the sensible thing is to legeslate open standards and
open file formats, to allow user portability, transparency, etc. But
how to convince companies that their software should store data in a
format that is 100% readable by a competitor's program? Or worse, an OS
that is vastly superior to anything one can buy... and FREE?

And that brings up another thought: will Linux remain free for the
future? Already, there are vultures hawking isos burnt to CD and some
distros that offer 'premium' versions for pay. Is it only a matter of
time before Linux becomes the next Windows, where the consumer must pay
an annual update fee in order to stay on top of the innovations?

On 4/18/05, Joel Jaeggli <joelja@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > wrote:

On Mon, 18 Apr 2005, kwhiskers wrote:

> So are you guys saying that this new/proposed (?) patent legislation in
> Europa will force other distros to remove vital components from the standard
> distibutions as well?

There is the potential for that yes.