Le sam 02/08/2003 à 03:46, Tim Kossack a écrit :
Am Fre, 2003-08-01 um 21.51 schrieb Féliciano Matias:
> Le ven 01/08/2003 à 17:53, Tim Kossack a écrit :
> > 3. red hat's (legal) position regarding shipping xmms without the
> > mp3-plug is understandable,
>
> Mandrake license :
>
http://ftp.club-internet.fr/pub/linux/Mandrake/9.1/i586/LICENSE.txt
> Warning: Free Software may not necessarily be patent free, and some Free
> Software included may be covered by patents in your country. For example, the
> MP3 decoders included may require a licence for further usage (see
>
http://www.mp3licensing.com for more details). If you are unsure if a patent
> may be applicable to you, check your local laws.
>
> Keep in mind that Mandrake is a French company and patent software don't
> apply in France.
so patent violations can't get inforced in france, am i getting you
right? i would be surprised if it's the same in germany, nevertheless
suse sontains at least an mp3-decoder by default (but they might have
payed for it-if suse can do it, why not red hat?!).
*Today* there are no software patent in Europe :
http://swpat.ffii.org/index.en.html
despite all this, my question was if it would be legally feasable to
enable xmms (or whatever program) to get the plug automatically from the
net after rhl is installed on the users pc.
In Europe Yes.
In USA and some other countries =>
http://www.mp3licensing.com
There is also a conflict between patent and GPL :
http://www.redhat.com/advice/speaks_80mm.html
- "Red Hat did not ship MP3 and DVD players in our 8.0 release. If you
thought we were just checking to see if you were paying attention,
you're wrong. Due to patent licensing and conflicts between such patent
licenses and the licenses of application source code, (MP3) support has
been removed from applications in Red Hat Linux."
>
> > 4. rh9.x should ship with flash-, java- and whatever plug-in already
> > installed in browsers
>
> Check the license of RHL :
>
http://ftp.rhnet.is/pub/redhat/linux/9/en/os/i386/EULA
>
> It's free OS. With java and/or flash we loose this GREAT benefit.
> To gain this benefit we (and you) need to make some efforts (download
> java, flash...).
so red hat would have to pay money for distributing java-, flash-plugin?
It's not only about money :
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
- "``Free software'' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand
the concept, you should think of ``free'' as in ``free speech,'' not as
in ``free beer.''"
because i as an enduser get those for free (because those companies
are
interested in establishing their standards), i thought that it would be
the same for vendors.
> > especially to prevent companies like lindows
> >
>
> Is Lindows a free OS ? Where can i download it ?
no, but imo rhl needs not to be free, they might sell it with their new
magazine having those plugs installed. also, again, there's a good
chance people might subscribe to rhn if they find rhl up to their
everydays tasks, if they get stucked even to play mp3s, the likely
won't!
http://counter.li.org/reports/machines.php
conectiva 1.29%
debian 19.44%
diy 1.23%
gentoo 2.09%
mandrake 16.28%
red hat 28.53%
s.u.s.e 11.30%
slackware 11.37%
Others 9.88% <= Lindows/Lycoris is somewhere here.
maybe red hat should think about cancelling free rhn-access to
earn the necessary money paying the licenses.
otherwise, if red hat won't or can't make an desktop targeting the
enduser (which mandrake and especially lindows seems to be doing
successfully), suited to the enduser's needs, it has already lost this
race before it really started. maybe they have already in abandoning the
classic boxed retailchannel!
it would be sad if the biggest commercial vendor of linux would not be
able to compete in this market, being outmanoeuvered by the other
vendors, and from a longterm business perspective, it might even not be
wise.
however this might be, i've made also some other comments-if this issue
isn't feasable, the other things are (because others are doing them, or
because they are already partly done)!
> again, those comments are being made from an ordinary users
perspective,
> > and are meant in a constructive manner!
> >
>
> OK.
GNU/Linux is a community effort to build a FREE operating system (`free'
as in `free speech,' not as in `free beer.').
RedHat provide RHL free :
- free as 'free beer' and 'free speech'
RedHat provide RHE free :
- free as 'free speech' except for the IBM jre (
http://www.redhat.com/licenses/rhel_us_2-1.html )
And RHN (RedHat Network (
http://rhn.redhat.com/)) is not free at all.
PS: Sorry for my poor English (I am French).
--
Féliciano Matias <feliciano.matias(a)free.fr>