Fedora's way forward

[Hans de Goede]

Jeff Spaleta wrote:
> On 3/31/06, Hans de Goede <j.w.r.degoede at hhs.nl> wrote:
>> We should provide a mechanism where if a user tries to play an
>> unsupported format, we look up the format in an ondisk (no phoning home
>> please) tabel and see if there is a gratis and legal (even in the
>> states!) downloadable codec in the tabel, if there is such a beast, then
>> _help_ the user install it.
> 
> Why should media formts be singled out for this special treatment?

Because we cannot offer _free_ replacements like we do for most other 
application wishes people might have because of the patent mess!

>> Another take on this, I'm a big fan of free software because of the
>> freedom it gives me, thats what this is all about isn't it, freedom!
>> Doesn't that include the freedom to use proprietary software when I want
>> to?
> 
> Sure... go ahead and google for whatever proprietary software you want
> and install what you find.  I really don't see why proprietary media
> formasts should get special treatment of the vast space of proprietary
> software you have the freedom to attempt to install and use.

See above.

>> It seems that there are people here who would like to even forbid
>> the use of proprietary software if they could and since then can't they
>> atleast want to make it as hard to use as possible, this is BAD as it
>> hurts other peoples freedom!
> 
> Cut the hyperbole. There is a big difference between actively making
> it harder and not spending time on it because there is other more
> worthwhile things to do which actually feedback into open development.

Nobody is asking anybody to spend time on it there are some people (Me, 
ESR) who are willing to spend time on this (for patent encumbered widely 
used media formats, see above). The problem is that before I start 
spending time on this I want to have a certain amount of assurance that 
if I come up with a nice and legal and 100% _free_ auto codec downloader 
for this it has a descent chance of getting included into Fedora. Heck 
even this discussion is taking way to much time, time I'd rather spent 
fixing dia and unorphaning it.

Regards,

Hans