kwhiskers wrote:
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?
Educate yourself and be a ambassador of unencumbered alternatives for multimedia like flac, Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora
And that brings up another thought: will Linux remain free for the future?
Yes .
Already, there are vultures hawking isos burnt to CD and some distros that offer 'premium' versions for pay.
There is nothing wrong with making money out of it.
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?
not when its licensed under the GPL
regards Rahul
