--- kwhiskers <kwhiskers@xxxxxxxxx> 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? 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? It should remain free and no one is the sole owner of > 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? I hope that this never happens. Many people out there produce great quality software and programs that work as good or better than the ones that you pay for. > > 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. If they do that we can still download what we need and get it working. Thats what many people do with Fedora get multimedia plugins that don't come with it and make it work. In my case, I had used Mandrake 9.0, 9.1 and 9.2 because of mp3's and to watch DVD's. A friend gave it to me and I installed it on my machine. I removed Lindows (now Linspire) from a 900 MHz Duron processor with a 15GB hardrive and put Mandrake. He also gave me a copy of Red Hat 8.0 and 9.0 and I could never get the mp3's to play and so I went with Mandrake then. After Mandrake went from 9.2 to 10.0 and then to 10.1. I decided to try Fedora Core 2 and I installed it on several machines. I removed Mandrake and I really liked Fedora I made the mp3's play and could watch DVD's. Fedora Core 3 has been my favorite so far, everything works great! On the same topic? What can we do to help the Software Patent issue if we are not from Europe? We get lots of goodies from very nice people from Europe. MPlayer1.0pre6 and now MPlayer1.0pre7 (hu) Hungary (please correct me), xine (de) Germany/Deutschland., Kile (Brachet Pascal(France), and now Jeroen Wijnhount) and countless others that contribute with great and free software. > > > > > > -- > fedora-list mailing list > fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx > To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
