Keith G. Robertson-Turner wrote: > First of all, I think I owe you, and this list, an apology. My little > tantrum was a little OTT and blown out of proportion. No apology needed. Good discussion and no flames were thrown. FWIW, I feel it is not OTT. It is relevant to what people have come to expect from their computers no mater what OS they are using. > The most unforgivable thing I did though, was make several assertions > without checking the facts, which are: On some lists that is an offense (or is it offence) punishable by death. Not so here...most of the time. :-) > Totem *can* play encumbered filetypes, but not in its default > configuration - as distributed in Fedora. > > Totem uses gstreamer plugins. This I knew from a long time ago, but > had completely forgotten about. Even xine uses libraries from other sources such as libdvdcss to play region protected DVD's. I suppose I tend to us the KISS principle when describing things. >> So, the well known solution is to pull your media player stuff from >> places like rpm.livna.org. (They are based in France I believe) > > Yes, I'm well acquainted with Livna, in fact I used to package for > them. You will see my name in the kmod-nvidia changelog if you look. OK, I will look...if you promise to look at the credits for "pine". I was involved in its very early development. :-) > >> They have totem stuff that will play those formats that the fedora >> distributed totem can't. > > Not quite correct. There are *gstreamer* plugins on Livna that enable > Totem to play back encumbered filetypes. This is the source of > confusion. And part of my KISS syndrome. > WRT my statement above about "pro-actively rejecting" encumbered > filetypes, I feel the Fedora project has gone a step too far. Don't > include them, by all means; don't encourage their use, certainly; > extol the virtues of Free software, of course; but don't play this > Cold War game of cat and mouse, by turning the whole "encumbered > software" problem into a classified secret that must never be spoken > about. For God's sake tell people precisely *why* the file has been > rejected by the application and *what they can do to view it* if that > is their choice. And like I said ... *do not pretend to handle > filetypes that you do not support* by associating applications with > unsupported filetypes. Agree with the "tell them why they can't view it" as for the "how to view it" there are still the pit falls in doing that from the legal point of view. >> So, in this case, even totem shouldn't be bad mouthed. > > I did vent my frustrations in the wrong direction, however something > does still need to be fixed to make the solution more obvious. > >> That should be reserved for the Music/Motion Picture Industry, >> MicroSoft, and the purveyors of proprietary licensed closed source >> formats. Oh, and probably a few lawyers.... :-) > > Oooh such foul language :) > >> One may say that the release notes should point this out...but I >> suspect that legally fedora folks can't tell you how you go about >> breaking the law as that is "illegal". > > It's a sad day indeed, when Americans (of all people) lose their > constitutional right to free speech. I'm an American...living overseas. However, I suspect that the concept of "free speech" is pretty much the same in the UK. You are free to say whatever you want...however you must accept the consequences of what you say. For example, you are "free" to shout fire in a theater or utter the word bomb on an airplane....but there very well may be consequences. You are free to tell a thief where your neighbor hides their spare key...but you may be charged as an accessory to a crime. It is pretty much the same thing for the fedora folks. The US courts don't make a distinction if an American aids someone in a foreign country to commit a crime. FWIW, I am *sure* the above two paragraphs are somewhat OT. :-) Ed -- When I was little, I went into a pet shop and they asked how big I'd get. -- Rodney Dangerfield
