On Sun, 2008-04-27 at 11:44 -0700, Antonio Olivares wrote:
--- Francis Earl <lunitik(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > Apparently some of the MP3 patents are supposedly
> > dying out, but not so soon :(
> >
> >
>
http://www.tunequest.org/a-big-list-of-mp3-patents/20070226/
>
> I was under the impression they were expiring around
> 2010, thank you for
> that link. The big one there is Alcatel-Lucent as
> they are the guys
> really throwing their muscle around.
>
> > As for the apple Ipod, and others they can get
> hacked
> > and unpaid music can be placed onto them. I have
> some
> > students that are very bright in this area, they
> put
> > music onto cell phones without paying for the
> music.
> > They are sharp with computers and electronics but
> ask
> > them about academics and they do not answer. They
> do
> > need to be dissapointed with Apple as they do not
> care
> > what they do, they know that someone, somewhere is
> > working to ensure that they can do other things
> that
> > Apple did not want them to do. :)
>
> While such things are always possible, it doesn't
> make it a good thing.
> You can actually get your iPod working on your Linux
> box though, it is
> the codecs and the related copyrights that are bad.
> Just because your
> students get away with breaking the law, doesn't
> mean it would be smart
> for RedHat to facilitate that...>
Agreed :)
By the same token they shouldn't be actively making it difficult either.
There is a balance to be struck here- both sides of this take away
freedom from the user to choose and put in place what they want. In this
case Fedora and non-free software are at extremes. A lot of distros are
finding (or at least trying to) the very fine balance in between.