I think the main thing you're missing here is, no one really cares whether Linux takes off on the desktop, in fact, Red Hat has said it won't try because it's not cost effective. An XP desktop costs around $200 whether it's added onto the cost of your machine or not. Linux generally is between $50-100 from most that try to sell it, but everyone goes for Windows anyways. You have to take several steps to get it onto that machine, and you're still not going to be the first choice because you're not what people are familiar with. Red Hat charges in the thousands per machine for support to corporations, that is where the money is, and by comparison, the home desktop is chump change to them. That is without marketing costs, without much of anything but a strong name in the corporate space. Why should they pay around $15 per user for software the user didn't pay for, just so they can play codecs that aren't relevant to the people making them their money? They are available within the community, so what is the issue? You'd rather Red Hat go out of business, just so it's easier for you to play a damn audio file, or better 3D performance for your games? There is nothing you can really do about nvidia and ati, nothing but reverse engineer things, or force them to open up the specs. There is people trying to do that stuff, via Nouveau for Nvidia cards for instance. There are even legal ways to get codecs (fluendo) and other equally easy ways. Red Hat would rather fight to get those companies to play ball right than just so "ok, we'll do it your way". You run Linux today because Red Hat didn't say "ok, put it in, but be gentle" to every corporation that told it to bend over. Today, Linux is big business, and is really making strides even on the home desktop. You wouldn't even have heard of Linux though if it wasn't for RedHat. Why should they go back on what has made them successful just because the current batch of Linux newcomers can't figure out how to add a yum repo or read docs? Then, that IS why Ubuntu is so popular today... but again, at least they're providing mindshare, so they're doing their part. I just hope they're not harming the rest of us by making it justifiable to not open their hardware to Linux devs, that they are teaching people the right way to do things. I hope they are doing more to wise users to better codecs - codecs that allow them to actually OWN the media, and share it legally. I don't see much of that though, all I see are a bunch of Ubuntu guys wandering out to the rest of the Linux community, and expecting Ubuntu's flawed beliefs to be prevalent everywhere. To answer your question, yes it does feel good being part of a minority that asks "how are they able to get away with that?", and makes an effort to ensure the industry can't rape users anymore. It speaks more loudly for the ignorance of society at large that these things are even an issue. On Sat, 2008-04-26 at 10:25 -0700, Paul Shaffer wrote: > Ah yes - the crux of the matter. May we also recognize that the > "faint of heart" also represents somewhere around 99% of "potential" > users? Even as some portion of the remaining 1% of the less faint > seem unhappy? > > Feel good belonging to such a small, elite minority that shrinks further every day? -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
