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LSDVD Starts Cooking
A reader writes: "The guys at LSDVD, now funded, are going to pay the powers that be the licensing fee and the per program royalties for the rights to make and sell a DVD player for Linux. This means that a free, give-em-hell, fight-the-power, Linux DVD player is a long ways off" - you can read the news on the homepage. Remember, LinDVD is also moving and shaking as well.
Having a licensed, approved, certified and authorized DVD player for Linux is only a victory for people who like to watch movies on their computer monitor. For open source, free-speech, and freedom of expression, it is a defeat. The licensing scheme itself and the lawsuits against reverse engineering are reprehensible, and all we're being offered here is an opportunity to buy in to--and help underwrite--corporate thuggery.
So if you really feel the need to subsidize the MPAA's lawsuits against freedom and innovation, go ahead and support these guys, or anybody else that sucks up to the consortium/cartel. In the meantime, though, I'm reluctant to sell my soul just so I can hear director's commentary for Battlefield Earth.
--
This is not my sandwich.
- A navigation system for accessing the DVDs format
- The keys to decrypt the data stream
- The MPEG-2 video player to display the un-encrypted stream
- The audio interpretter to read the audio track to 1,2,3,4,5,5.1 chanel sound
I'm sure the above is technically incorrect, but it does present a picture close to the truth (and better for free software supporters than the truth!). If I bothered doing all this, the end user would still have to plug in a bunch of systems to actually play a DVD and I wouldn't exactly be providing a player, would I?We have to focus our lobbying effort on these licensors, get them to remove software form the equation. Let's face it we are all quite happy to pay £5 on our amplifier/soundcard for dobly digital decrytion licensing, but we won't pay £0.02 for the same in software, let them recoup their money from hardware.
Off-Topic: Can anyone tell me if there have been any DVDs produced yet WITHOUT CSS and therefore not-encrypted or regonalised and if these disks would play on hardware players. Perhaps we should lobby for all the production houses to release without CSS, finally recognising that this is a stupid system which creates hassle and serves no purpose (well not since it was broken anyway, and that was always only a question of time).
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
The last thing we want is to have Linux corrupted by closed source, proprietary software, which by definition cannot be as good as open source
And the bells ring out for all to burn the heretics. Closed Source does NOT mean worse software. These people are paying for the rights to a produce a DVD player, the very least they should be able to do is recoup that cost. The holier than thou attitude that "if it ain't open source its rubbish" is just plain wrong. In Utopia everything is free and everything works. But sometimes you have to pay the bucks to get the quality.
As has been said before about databases, Oracle and DB2 are closed source, and reliability is definately not one of their problems.
Open your mind, this is a good progression.
And remember, CPUs are just hard coded software, and you don't complain about not having the schematic do you ?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
This falls into the "better than nothng, but not by much" category. There's no mention of it in the FAQ, but I'm guessing that support for non-x86 platforms will be minimal or non-existant. They may go for a PPC version, but I don't hold out much hope of seeing a version for my Sparc Linux box. Oh well, at least there's still LiViD.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
"I don't like Windows either but y'all are looking sort of childish making a political statement out of not using it."
Okay, I'm boycotting the movies. No, really. There is one whole person actually willing to admit they're actually boycotting, and it's me. I feel like a minority of one, but there you go.
Anyway, the reason I do has nothing to do with Windows. I simply believe that I should be allowed my rights under existing Fair Use provisions of copyright law. The MPAA doesn't want to permit that, so they're basically trying to rework the law to remove Fair Use, through application of the DMCA. That has nothing to do with Windows, and everything to do with how I may use property I own.
If we lived in a much, much wierder world, it would be just as easy for the MPAA to only license players that played under Linux, shutting out Windows, Mac, and other OSes. I wouldn't jump for joy at that point; that's just as immoral.
Have you seen what kinds of restrictions some people are asking for on digital books? Same thing. Further, they're wanting to keep you from loaning your book to someone else, or selling it at a digital used-book store. There is no reason the digital medium should allow that, except that publishers want it. The MPAA, should they be successful, will have laid the legal groundwork for that.
Technology should empower the individual, not to strip the individual of rights s/he already has. That's why I'm boycotting the movies.
phil
"Free software" is not the be-all and end-all of the software world.
Loki, for example, is doing the Linux world a great favour by porting popular games to Linux. Their games are not free. Same with id (until they released Quake x sources), if you didn't own win32 Quake before you got the linux port.
A piece of software released as a source tarball can have more of an effect on the Linux world, sure, but IMHO, we don't have to expect everything to be that way. It's really very simple; a lot of work requires licensing fees to be paid (a-la-CSS), and we can't always expect companies to dish out cash and reward us all with their efforts for free.
That having been said, I will probably not buy a Linux DVD product, because I have no problem using a win9x box for that. I already have a Windows box for playing Windows games. What's the crime in that?
meisenst
Green's Law of Debate: Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about.
"Linux is meant to encourage freedom" - Well, Linux hasn't been codified into law in any country I've heard of, so if you'll continue to use illegal technology (even if the law is stupid), be prepared to face the consequences.
A: A wicked awesome audio/visual experiance that allows you to witness the awe and mystery of true DVD playback under Linux with AC3 and all the goodies. Look elsewhere on this site for more information.
Q: Oh yes! DVD under Linux! Hooray!
A: We thought you would be happy.
Q: Since this is a Linux project it's going to be open sourced and gpl'd, right?
A: No.
Q: WHAT?! Why (optional profanity) not?
A: Unfortunately the DVD Forum, Dolby and MPEGLA have proprietary rights to AC3 and decoding schemas (as well as much needed hardware specs). In order to legally develop this program we are going to have to pay a huge licensing fee to each and (on top of that) royalties on every program distriputed. Hence, we have to charge for it, but not too much hopefully.
Q: You're sure it won't be free?
A: Positive.
Q: Not even for me? I am "eleet dude", come on!
A: Nope, not even for you.
Q: Well how about a beta then. Can I be a beta tester?
A: No, all of our testing is going to be done internally with the developers and other hand picked individuals.
Q: When will it be released?
A: Eventually.
Q: Eventually? Eventually!?!? How soon is that!
A: How soon do you think it is?
Q: Can I please have a beta?
A: No.
Q: So how much did you say it was going to cost?
A: I didn't say. How much are you willing to give us?
Dunno about you but this doesn't give me much of a warm fuzzy feeling inside. The folks over at LiViD may have some work to do still, but at least I can see their progress, and help contribute to the source tree where I can. Not that I don't welcome projects like LSDVD - but I'll believe it when I see it.
FWIW the LiViD CVS tarball features AC3 decoding, decryption and authorisation of discs, mpeg playback and a whole lot of other bonus features - including hacked up hardware acceleration for DXr2 and Matrox owners.
Support them /.'ers - they need your help.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.