Web site suggestions.

[Gertjan Vinkesteijn]

Robin Laing wrote:

> Bevan C. Bennett wrote:
>
>> Robin Laing wrote:
>>
>>
>> Even if the website were outside the US, Fedora as a US organization 
>> cannot officially condone the illegal use of software. Private 
>> repositories for these packages are easily discovered for those who 
>> live somewhere without such laws or for those willing to personally 
>> risk infringing use.
>>
>> Yes, it's perhaps stupid that certain corporations han maintain a 
>> licensing stranglehold on certain popular codecs (even if they did 
>> come up with them in the first place), and prevent them from being 
>> used with GPL software.
>>
>> The very simple difference is that, because Windows is not 
>> zero-price, Microsoft can absorb all of the licensing costs to these 
>> other companies neccessary to legally include their algorithms in the 
>> packaged product. Apple can (and does) do the same thing.
>>
>> A company could set themselves up selling properly licensed software 
>> for mp3 and dvd use, but they could not use GPL code to create their 
>> software without some interesting shenanigans, because the license 
>> will prohibit the end result from being GPLd.
>>
>> The DVD issue is really annoying, but I just rip all my CDs to .ogg 
>> and avoid the MP3 fiasco entirely. For a user without a pre-existing 
>> collection, it's easy to use the included tools in Fedora to do this. 
>> As an added benefit, not having any mp3s on your system makes you 
>> less likely to be targeted as an alleged music pirate by large 
>> overzealous acronyms.
>
>
> It is a shame that companies are doing all that they can to prevent 
> the growth of Linux.  Look at Microsofts paying SCO to fight.  (search 
> for links)  DeCSS was developed for the purpose of playing DVD's on 
> Linux.
>
> Even if the site cannot be officially sanctioned by Fedora and RedHat, 
> it doesn't mean that it cannot be setup.  If you follow and search the 
> Archives you can find most of these pachages mentioned.  The problem 
> is one single site.  Even when I typed in "yum update" yesterday, I 
> ended up with a dependency error so yum is not perfect.  Some sites 
> have part of the package but you have to download libs from another 
> site.  Of course a new user needs to set it up for all the "other" 
> providers.  Especially the signatures for security.
>
> Ripping or even playing CD's could become a problem without codecs as 
> the music industries want to put more copy protections on the CD's.  I 
> have even seen suggestions of using WMP 9 with DRM for protection.
>
> We may have one blessing if the EU forces Microsoft to not include 
> Windows Media Player.  It would be nice if something similiar could 
> occur in the US and Canada.
>
I agree, but do we have a working KaZaa like thing on the moment? Or a 
5.1 sound system? That is a booster with at least 4 speakers for 29 euro 
C-media card and 50 euro Trust speakerset

-- 
Peace is everywhere
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