Fedora Desktop future- RedHat moves

[max bianco]

On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 11:33 PM, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Les wrote:
>
>
> > On Fri, 2008-04-25 at 13:45 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
> >
> > > Why should I be interested in a distribution that makes it
> > > difficult for me to make my own choices about whether a license
> > >
> >
>  >> is acceptable or not? I don't have a problem with downloading
>  >> my own copy of any  >> particular code from any particular
>  >> place under any conditions that I find acceptable.
>
>
> > But that is the problem.  The folks with proprietary want to limit your
> > use to only the systems they have chosen to support, thus you can end up
> > with instruments or software that you have purchased that will not run
> > when the OS changes.
> >
>
>  That's hardly unique to proprietary software.  I once relied heavily on
> CIPE as a VPN, but FC2 just dumped it with no replacement.  Yes, I could
> have kept all the broken pieces of the source code...
>
>
>
> >  Furthermore their licenses forbid you from reverse
> > engineering the code to figure out how to make it work some where else,
> > and the owner of the proprietary OS won't let you do any reverse
> > engineering legally to figure out how to interface to the software or
> > hardware he/she/it chooses to no longer support.
> >
>
>  I'm perfectly willing to take the chance that if I need something there
> will be a proprietary vendor.  Aside from it being a silly argument
> particularly when we are starting from a point where the free version is the
> one that doesn't work, why is it anyone else's business?
>
>
>  > Thus you are obsoleted
>
> > with no legal recourse.
> >
>
>  Fedora is hardly in a position to talk about obsolescence being a problem
> since they force it on everyone with every version.
>
>
>
> > Those lovely sites where you download such
> > utilities are often legally not clean to use either, depending upon the
> > laws that the various entities have seen fit to pass.
> >
>
>  Ummm, we were talking about Sun Java, here.  Remember, the one that defines
> the standard. The one you can download for free from their own web site.
> Fedora is the site that ships the non-conforming version and the one that is
> going to be obsolete.
>
>
>
> > Finally your own
> > documents, code and other encoded data may be unaccessable to you
> > either, because the formatting, encoding, encryption or compression may
> > be proprietary and non disclosed with the attendant no reverse
> > engineering clauses, leaving you without access even to your own
> > material.
> >
>
>  Again - Sun Java. The programming language.  The thing that everyone other
> than Sun has tried to corrupt by making incompatible versions that suit
> their own agendas better.  Do you really expect fedora to ship utilities to
> fix the programs you wrote earlier under their non-conforming version to run
> under the real thing when they switch?
>
>
>
> > That is why these licenses, and the subject of libre or free software is
> > important.
> >
>
>  Following standards is what is important and what prevents it from being a
> problem when you switch components.  The version that fedora ships is a
> non-standard one.  They aren't doing anyone any favors by making it
> difficult to use the real one.
>
>
May i ask why you use Fedora if its such a royal pain in the ass?

Max