Fedora Desktop future- RedHat moves

[Bob Kinney]

--- On Sun, 4/27/08, David Boles <dgboles at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: David Boles <dgboles at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Fedora Desktop future- RedHat moves
> To: "For users of Fedora" <fedora-list at redhat.com>
> Date: Sunday, April 27, 2008, 6:21 PM
> Tim wrote:
> > Tim:
> >>> A big company taking the moral stand versus a
> handful of users taking an
> >>> opposite moral stand.  Guess which one wins?
> > 
> > Francis Earl:
> >> I don't see how setting up livna, or
> complaining about the contents
> >> therein not being in Fedora is a moral stand?
> It's just lazy and/or
> >> ignorant.
> > 
> > Do I really need to spell it out?  In the red corner
> we have a company
> > that has taken a stand on what they will and won't
> do.  In the blue
> > corner we have a user that has taken a stand that if
> the system doesn't
> > do what they think it should do, to hell with them...
> > 
> > Both sides are posturing about principles, but
> he's no David, and
> > Goliath isn't disturbed.
> 
> 
> The true difference here is that 'the company' can
> be sued for doing things 
> that are illegal. And they, 'the company', chose
> not to do those things. And 
> that they also have standards and principles that they
> chose to follow. 
> Clearly stated. Open to view. Often repeated.
> 
> The user is unhappy about that and knows of other
> distributions that don't 
> care if they do things that are illegal and that don't
> have standards and 
> principles. The user, if he wishes to remain with Fedora,

<snip>

My impression is that the RedHat chose to remove the functionality because  there was no unencumbered license for the MP3 and other proprietary media
codecs, which could put them at *risk* for legal action or ridiculous 
demands.  This seems like a wise business move on their part.

But I don't think that from this decision, one should conclude that the
other distros are doing anything illegal. 


--bobcat


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