I am glad to hear that the GPL can act as a kind of safeguard for keeping Linux free. I am definitely sold on the idea of free software, free books, free art, free music, etc, to permit everyone access to electronic media without disenfranchisement based on income or lack of financial resources. I would gladly convert my mp3 files, but there are thousands, and apart from the time it would take, there is also the concern that there would be a loss of quality through the conversion. But mostly, I am worried that, were I to convert to ogg vorbis and theora, I could not share files with friends. I have raved about Linux, but I can't get anyone interested. Even the fact that I need spend no money and have years ago deleted all bootlegged software and all the cracks necessary to keep it running makes no difference. People think that Linux would be a hardship (true, it does cost me a lot of time). They would rather break the law, shell out hundreds, or continue to use Windows 98! They say: I have to have Word; I have to have Nero burning cdrom (mostly in order to make illegal copies, why else?), etc. (Well, I admit I do like Corel Photopaint - I'm still using #9). These people do have a valid point, but only because proprietary formats are so ubiquitous. I have noticed that, as fantastic as Koffice, Abiword and Open Office are, Powerpoint presentations don't display properly in them (sometimes one can get them to display as separate pages, but often either the text, images, sometimes both, are missing). Also, Excel files will usually display, but they rarely perform the calculations from cell to cell. Sometimes a Word document will either not open, or more frequently, the tables, image positioning, etc are all messed up. Even editing web pages made with Front Page are a nightmare to edit in Quanta or Mozilla Composer. The conversions just don't work 100%, except for the most basic of files. This is not a huge problem for me, but once when filling out a lengthy questionnaire in Open Office, I had to admit defeat. The lines and page formatting got all screwed up, symbols changed and so did colours, and in the end, to my chagrin, I had to do it all over again in Windows. It was exasperating. Linux works for me, but only because I don't need to share much information, files, etc. I don't write documents or make image presentations. My primary output is exclusively for me. The few things I need to send out go in the form of emails, hence are platform independent. Well, I guess I have gotten off topic, but I do hope that, if anything, Linux can have an impact on the use of standard file formats for the sharing of information. <div>On 4/18/05, Felipe Alfaro Solana <<a href="mailto:lkml@mac.com">lkml@mac.com</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> On 18 Apr 2005, at 17:44, kwhiskers wrote: > And that brings up another thought: will Linux remain free for the > future? 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 don't think so... I guess there will still be GPLed software for a very long time. </blockquote></div>