Fedora - DELL ?

[Andy Green]

Les Mikesell wrote:
> Andy Green wrote:
> 
>> This problem: ''It's Linux that brings a problem into this picture.'' 
>> Mentioned after your noting that Dells ship with MP3 and WMA and "It's 
>> Linux that brings a problem into this picture.".  The reason Linux 
>> distros don't ship with that support is patents.  I hope that clears 
>> up your sudden attack of 'confusion'.
> 
> No, it doesn't clear it up, given that other operating systems are able 
> to arrange distribution with patented components.  I'm not insisting 
> that this combination be free, just available.

For Microsoft, it's paid-for and the whole thing is not redistributable. 
  For Linspire solutions for Linux, the OS is redistributable but not 
the MP3 part.  Fedora's basis is that it is contains freely 
redistributable stuff, and indeed I find being able to copy it around at 
will is important.

>>> you are willing to meet the licensing terms of all the components you 
>>> want to have, no one is allowed to combine them for you if any part 
>>> is covered by the GPL and any other part has different restrictions.
>>
>> These are completely separate areas in law.  The GPL operates under 
>> Copyright law.  But the work you have fully legitimate copyright to 
>> can easily violate dozens of patents, which is regulated by a 
>> completely separate body of patent law.  Let's imagine your enduser 
>> view of the GPL making problems was solved.  Say the GPL became BSD 
>> overnight.  Still Redhat cannot bundle mp3 players due to patent law.
> 
> They would no longer be constrained by licensing to not add components 
> with different redistribution restrictions.  So they could bundle 
> anything they want as long as the license requirements were met 
> independently.

You mean: "Copyright licensing".  Patentholders typically did it to make 
money, and won't license their patents for free usage unless there is a 
quid pro quo in the form of a patent crosslicense.  So Fedora could not 
go on as it is even in that hypothetical situation where copyright 
licensing restrictions disappeared but it wanted to include patented 
software: it would have to charge like all the other solutions currently 
have to charge.

>> I have to say I noted the irony of your using Alan Cox's code in the 
>> networking stack to piss him off.  Seems your complaints should be 
>> tempered by some recognition that a lot of work went into giving us 
>> this stuff for free.  Without acknowledging the debt, your complaints 
>> sound like a teenager complaining about how unfair his life is, while 
>> he lives under a roof he doesn't have to pay for, eats food, wears 
>> clothes that are given to him.
> 
> Is there something unique about the linux kernel that should matter to 
> me?  It is a convenient place to run X, apache, sendmail, perl, nfs, 
> java, firefox, openoffice, etc. and I use it because it has hijacked 
> much driver and kernel development that might have gone into the *bsd's 
> otherwise.  But I'll turn your comment around and point out that Linux 

But your complaints centre on Linux and the GPL.

> wouldn't exist without the design and specification of the original 
> proprietary version of unix, and those other applications wouldn't exist 
> without their original proprietary host OS's and in many cases their own 
> proprietary versions.  If you are going to pay homage to the development

You should turn it around a little further: Linux wouldn't exist as it 
is without the GPL, because the same set of contributors and the same 
ecosystem would not have formed.  When you compose your complaints about 
the downstream effects of the GPL limiting what can be bundled, you 
should consider effect #0: it gave you the thing in the first place.

> cycle, you should point out the irony of the self-serving GPL exception
> allowing linkage with proprietary libraries of operating systems that it 
> happens to need to run and initially couldn't have existed without, yet 
> denying distribution with other binary-only components.  What's that 
> about acknowledging debt?  Meanwhile I still buy copies of Windows and 
> OS X for my machines because Linux distributions don't (and perhaps 
> can't ever) include components to do all of the equivalent things.

People did a lot of work and gave you the result for free so you would 
have something to complain about.  That is what should be acknowledged. 
  It doesn't mean falling to your knees and weeping.  But instead of 
acknowledging it, which should be easy enough since the evidence is all 
around you, you find yourself reaching into the GPL and picking out a 
specific feature of the license to complain about in response 
instead[1].  Your point is that this license feature means they didn't 
do all that work and give it to you for free?  No, it means you have a 
problem acknowledging that you are the recipient of their kindness, 
because doing so puts the complaints in a different, more holistic light.

I have to use XP in vmware for one program myself, it doesn't invalidate 
the great work in Linux that works in every other area of my computer 
use, in fact having to go in there reminds me how great it all is.  Use 
Linux where it makes sense and does a good job, by all means use other 
stuff when you have to.  Don't try to bend Linux and Fedora out of the 
shape of what they are to fit all cases.

>>> How is this going to change?  I expect encodings to continue to 
>>> improve and for people to continue to need a way to fund the 
>>> development work. The GPL just doesn't provide a good model to fairly 
>>> share those costs and it doesn't co-exist well with the schemes that do.
>>
>> Yeah that's actually right IMO.  About a year ago I had the same 
>> argument with ESR.  Proprietary software -- proprietary in the 
>> copyright sense -- is given meaning and a lease of life by proprietary 
>> codecs -- proprietary in the patent sense.  The two are symbiotic 
>> because they can share revenue.  The FOSS "niche" is everywhere else.
>>
>> Because of great patent-free codecs like Matroska and Vorbis we are 
>> not locked out of participating in audio and video, but the content 
>> rightsholders, by their choice of patent-protected codings, can and 
>> will lock us out of being able to offer their content. 
> 
> Yes, content is what matters, so those codecs become important when/if 
> the content you want is available in that encoding.  Until the content 
> vendors give up on DRM by finding out it doesn't sell, that's probably 
> not going to happen.

Yeah, although there are signs EMI in financial desperation may be 
preparing to push the MP3 button, not that it helps us much as we 
discussed.  The best answer is not to buy content that is restrictively 
licensed.  http://jamendo.com will work with Fedora out of the box, with 
CC licensed music in OGG Vorbis format.  If you encourage that stuff 
with your money instead you are doing something to reward people for 
being open and trusting and punishing the closed people that will jump 
at the chance to sue you.

>> And despite ESR's naive hopes of getting rescued by Linspire, there is 
>> nothing that can be done about it from this side going on.  And who to 
>> blame?  Patent law.
> 
> I agree that we'd be better off if software were recognized as math and 
> not eligible for patents, but the mere existence of a patent doesn't 
> mean that the terms of licensing have to be unreasonable or that the 
> license can't be arranged and aggregated by a distributor.  However 
> vendor-provided binary drivers are a more immediate issue relating 
> specifically to Linux. The mp3 discussion was just a sidetrack since 
> it's all application level and can be done without inheriting any GPL 
> restrictions.

In practice it does typically mean that unless the patent is used in 
crosslicensing horsetrading, it won't be granted in a redistributable 
way for $0: because then why bother with a patent.  So patents 
inherently stand against free and freely redistributable software like 
Fedora, GPL or no GPL.  The content rightsholders that will leverage 
that by patented codec choice stand against it too: why reward that with 
your money.

-Andy

[1] Have you met my ex-?