Re: Fedora Desktop future- RedHat moves

Bob Kinney wrote:

--- On Sun, 4/27/08, David Boles <dgboles@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

From: David Boles <dgboles@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Fedora Desktop future- RedHat moves
To: "For users of Fedora" <fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sunday, April 27, 2008, 6:21 PM
Tim wrote:

Tim:

A big company taking the moral stand versus a

handful of users taking an

opposite moral stand.  Guess which one wins?

Francis Earl:

I don't see how setting up livna, or

complaining about the contents

therein not being in Fedora is a moral stand?

It's just lazy and/or

ignorant.

Do I really need to spell it out?  In the red corner

we have a company

that has taken a stand on what they will and won't

do.  In the blue

corner we have a user that has taken a stand that if

the system doesn't

do what they think it should do, to hell with them...

Both sides are posturing about principles, but

he's no David, and

Goliath isn't disturbed.

The true difference here is that 'the company' can

be sued for doing things that are illegal. And they, 'the company', chose not to do those things. And that they also have standards and principles that they chose to follow. Clearly stated. Open to view. Often repeated.

The user is unhappy about that and knows of other

distributions that don't care if they do things that are illegal and that don't have standards and principles. The user, if he wishes to remain with Fedora,

<snip>

My impression is that the RedHat chose to remove the functionality because  there was no unencumbered license for the MP3 and other proprietary media

codecs, which could put them at *risk* for legal action or ridiculous demands. This seems like a wise business move on their part.

But I don't think that from this decision, one should conclude that the

other distros are doing anything illegal.

Microsoft *pays* a fee to provide the codecs to play mps3. Why? Because you have to *pay* for the software. You (users) pay for Microsoft Windows.

The distributions that provide these codecs, and all, also reside in countries where this is illegal. But third world countries chose to not enforce the laws. Hence they exist.

Illegal to do but not worth the effort (money/benefit) to bother with at this time. Music *used* to be that way. As did Napster. As did bittorent pirated movies.

If a man provides you an apple, that is not his to give away (stolen), and you take it? Look up 'receiving stolen property'. I'm not an attorney but that sounds about right for this.

--


  David

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