A standard should be A STANDARD. Whats the point of many standards?
Then you're back at square one with everyone using a different standard.
Hell lets go further and just let Microsoft put any propitiatory crap that will only work with their programs and call that a standard. Oh look now we're back again with everyone using different standards but this time they're closed source so only Microsoft can use them and around, and around, and around we go.
One file format to rule them all and in the XML spec bind them!
It is not useful you can't calculate dates before 1900s due to backwards compatibility with other Microsoft products. How is that useful for other office products, as a standard and for users of the format.
With regards to the CNR technology what is the big deal. Linspire rsyncs Ubuntu debs and allows people to download them and pay for some commercial packages on a website. Hardly a "deal". I'm still going to use apt-get anyway.
While I'm not a fan of software patents or DRM, invalidating them via a clause in a license is a purely political move
Invalidating?! Patents arn't voided. If you contribute code that YOU have patented to an open source project you can't then take the project to court. That doesn't void or invalidate the patent!
Why should you care about people having software patents in an open source project in the first place? Is there something you wanted to patent and exploit? What? Since the patent isn't voided, just that you can not bring a lawsuit on anyone to do with the project you just added code to whats the problem?
What you are complaining about is not being able to bring open source projects to court for infringing on patents you added code to.
Aren't there different levels of jet fuel?
From what I remember from the TV program the military used class A and commercial airlines used class B fuel. I have no idea what the differences are. Do you know what this means?
Actually I remember watching a TV program years ago that said the airliners wouldn't use the same fuel that the military use (which doesn't explode) because it was more expensive.
... on the desktop? I only have Ubuntu installed and I don't see why a VM is such a massive feature these days? Have I missed something amazing that I can do on these or is it simply for a cool "hey I can run a desktop on a desktop!"
I understand that application compatibility is a big deal but Linux has a zillion apps already.
I just don't get all the marketing surrounding it.
According to a KU spokesperson, KU has received 345 notices in the past year from organizations and businesses regarding complaints about copyrighted material downloading.
If they had not been so accommodating to the RIAA and MPAA the first time around then they wouldn't be inundated with requests from them now. When the bully knows he can hurt the kid without any consequences then they keep coming back until the victim turns around and punches him in the nose.
Thats not to say the MPAA or RIAA can't legally do what they are doing but they are only doing it because they know the University is going to bend over backwards to serve them. The university should be protecting the students not siding with ultra massive corporations. What kind of message does that serve.
Are you saying that a third world countries having the freedom not to pay a first world country company such as Microsoft isn't important?
That such countries should be forced to use English because thats the default OS behavior? That everything should be locked away so people of such a country shouldn't be able to learn how technology works? That programming languages should come with expensive tools to keep the poor from learning a new skill?
Things like native client side validation, canvas and menu elements. These are things that we have been crying out for years but W3C disappeared up their own self-validating a**es.
Even with client side validation you would still have to validate it server side anyway unless you are a crap developer.
I would rather have xhtml then go back to the mess that html was with its styling embedding directly into the tags and I know that if its allowed its going to happen. Some day I am going to get the tag soup code from the developer working with me, I can feel it.
Give me clean code and forced usage of CSS any day.
With a recent Supreme court decision in AT&T Vs. Microsoft the usa is now on par with EU and UK concerning software patents.
No its not. It is irrelevant to bring up the AT&T as it has nothing to do with the US patent laws being on par with EU and UK laws. If they are then you are saying that software patents in the US are now all void in which case we can download medic codecs as much as Americans want!
The laws of the US and the UK on software patents are extremely different I don't know where the hell you figured otherwise because of some lame AT&T case to do with the exporting of patents outside the US doesn't change the laws outside of the US.
Actually a few more allow software as part of the patented invention including the UK
Irrelevant since a media codec is a purely software invention anything on an operating system is purely software. You can not hold a patent on software alone in the UK.
The UK in theory might be one of them so please don't be so smug.
I know you're trying your best to FUD this up, but just stop trolling. Its lame that you have gone to these lengths.
Software patents don't exist in the UK. Software patents don't exist in the EU. I know you want them to for the sake of "winning" an internet argument but they don't. They will never reverse this decision in the UK so whatever bullshit you want to reply to this go ahead but the US doesn't dictate patent law to the world just because of some courtroom case on American soil.
Putting fingers in your ears and saying it's someone elses problem doesn't help.
Help with what? There is no problem at all. Its all just a lame excuse just so the author of the article can go "see, Linux is still not good enough".
This isn't the first negative Linux article written by the author.
Happily as far as I know only 3 countries allowed patents on software
Why is this even news..
STOP THE PRESSES! Three countries in the world have legal grey area problems installing codecs to get an mp3 working on Linux! Surly its not ready for desktop! ZOMG!
Are there no REAL reasons to not use Linux left that we get this crap? Pathetic.
Your post that shows that you have no idea whatsoever of legal realities in the US business world.
Your post that shows that you have no idea whatsoever of the choices in codecs available otherwise you would realise that you can buy legal codecs (not that you have to in most countries) for Linux systems for people in your situation.
The author of this stupid post must also be exetremely lazy. A quick google gives you this information right away! Go away troll.
it does indeed scare the users to see a disclaimer like this
Based on what? In your own words you stated you were THINKING of rolling out Linux so you're just speculating on the effects it has on users. If you were replacing users Desktops with Ubuntu why not just install the codecs when installing the OS, then your users won't get "freaked out".
Unfortunately this is another blow that stops adoption.
I guess when all the real problems go away you have to make up problems such as this. Not that this is a problem as it only effects countries that believe software is patentable. Canonical (makers of Ubuntu) is UK based and the UK doesn't believe software can be patented as I believe does the rest of the world.
It is only in selected places such is the US where the stupidities of such laws get debated. So why not change the title from "Do "Illegal" Codecs Actually Scare Linux Users?" to "Do "Illegal" Codecs Actually Scare US Linux Users?"
I don't believe you when you say this is hindering your decision on switching to Linux as its the lamest excuse I have heard yet.
It's no surprise they decided not to participate, and develop their own XML format. ODF was never intended to support Office, and was likely positioned to make it difficult for Microsoft to do so.
What bullshit! Microsoft where asked to join in with the ODF Specs and they REFUSED!
Sure, if the same company that put it in finds the patent for it, it addresses that, but if a separate company files for a patent it doesn't fix anything.
Actually I believe the license says that any patent issues in that instance would be to do with the person who originally put the patented code into the project rather then the project itself. This could have changed in the license though.
Patent issues are a pain in the ass and anything written to stop even one patent issue going to court is better in my opinion then just saying "well its not THAT much better". Saying that its still not effective enough doesn't negate the fact that you just stated one patent issue that is fixed with the new license.
This is why no only distributing but propagating is covered. Unless your willing to do that, you might want to rethink your choice. And think about those who would be using your program and how they would react to that if you want to keep users around.
I am confused by what you are saying. Are you saying that if I propagate my source code in GPL 2 (copy and paste it) that the GPL no longer applies? Why should I have to re-think that?
Could you be more clear and propagating and distribution seem to be the same things to me.
But skilled programers can see where the code is being executed from, they can see what is going on with the source and they can see if it is the real deal or not.
I do not think it is as easy as you think. You have an encrypted binary running on a locked down embedded device. I think it would be difficult to figure out what a phone that ran Linux (like Motorola A1200) is doing without some kind of access to the internals of the phone.
Can you really expect a license to b effective when you need a lawyer to understand it?
Can you really expect the Linux kernel to be effective when you need a Linus Torvalds to understand it?
A license is only good if there are no problems with it. If you have lawyers debating what the "spirit of the license" means in the courtroom it wastes the FSF and programmers money on lawyers trying to win the case.
By clearly laying out what the spirit means into the license there is no need for a debate. Sure you and I know what the spirit means but a judge won't and the lawyers would have to convince a judge what it actually means before they could determine if a party had actually violated it.
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A standard should be A STANDARD. Whats the point of many standards?
Then you're back at square one with everyone using a different standard.
Hell lets go further and just let Microsoft put any propitiatory crap that will only work with their programs and call that a standard. Oh look now we're back again with everyone using different standards but this time they're closed source so only Microsoft can use them and around, and around, and around we go.
One file format to rule them all and in the XML spec bind them!
It is not useful you can't calculate dates before 1900s due to backwards compatibility with other Microsoft products. How is that useful for other office products, as a standard and for users of the format.
It doesn't effect anything..
Read Mark's blog he posted about this ages ago...
With regards to the CNR technology what is the big deal. Linspire rsyncs Ubuntu debs and allows people to download them and pay for some commercial packages on a website. Hardly a "deal". I'm still going to use apt-get anyway.
Invalidating?! Patents arn't voided. If you contribute code that YOU have patented to an open source project you can't then take the project to court. That doesn't void or invalidate the patent!
Why should you care about people having software patents in an open source project in the first place? Is there something you wanted to patent and exploit? What? Since the patent isn't voided, just that you can not bring a lawsuit on anyone to do with the project you just added code to whats the problem?
What you are complaining about is not being able to bring open source projects to court for infringing on patents you added code to.
Do we really need a slashdot story about this? I thought it was common knowledge that it was useless.
Smells like FUD.
Aren't there different levels of jet fuel? From what I remember from the TV program the military used class A and commercial airlines used class B fuel. I have no idea what the differences are. Do you know what this means?
Actually I remember watching a TV program years ago that said the airliners wouldn't use the same fuel that the military use (which doesn't explode) because it was more expensive.
... on the desktop? I only have Ubuntu installed and I don't see why a VM is such a massive feature these days? Have I missed something amazing that I can do on these or is it simply for a cool "hey I can run a desktop on a desktop!"
I understand that application compatibility is a big deal but Linux has a zillion apps already.
I just don't get all the marketing surrounding it.
If they had not been so accommodating to the RIAA and MPAA the first time around then they wouldn't be inundated with requests from them now. When the bully knows he can hurt the kid without any consequences then they keep coming back until the victim turns around and punches him in the nose.
Thats not to say the MPAA or RIAA can't legally do what they are doing but they are only doing it because they know the University is going to bend over backwards to serve them. The university should be protecting the students not siding with ultra massive corporations. What kind of message does that serve.
Are you saying that a third world countries having the freedom not to pay a first world country company such as Microsoft isn't important?
That such countries should be forced to use English because thats the default OS behavior? That everything should be locked away so people of such a country shouldn't be able to learn how technology works? That programming languages should come with expensive tools to keep the poor from learning a new skill?
Even with client side validation you would still have to validate it server side anyway unless you are a crap developer.
I would rather have xhtml then go back to the mess that html was with its styling embedding directly into the tags and I know that if its allowed its going to happen. Some day I am going to get the tag soup code from the developer working with me, I can feel it.
Give me clean code and forced usage of CSS any day.
The laws of the US and the UK on software patents are extremely different I don't know where the hell you figured otherwise because of some lame AT&T case to do with the exporting of patents outside the US doesn't change the laws outside of the US.Irrelevant since a media codec is a purely software invention anything on an operating system is purely software. You can not hold a patent on software alone in the UK.I know you're trying your best to FUD this up, but just stop trolling. Its lame that you have gone to these lengths.
Software patents don't exist in the UK. Software patents don't exist in the EU. I know you want them to for the sake of "winning" an internet argument but they don't. They will never reverse this decision in the UK so whatever bullshit you want to reply to this go ahead but the US doesn't dictate patent law to the world just because of some courtroom case on American soil.Help with what? There is no problem at all. Its all just a lame excuse just so the author of the article can go "see, Linux is still not good enough".
This isn't the first negative Linux article written by the author.
STOP THE PRESSES!
Three countries in the world have legal grey area problems installing codecs to get an mp3 working on Linux! Surly its not ready for desktop! ZOMG!
Are there no REAL reasons to not use Linux left that we get this crap? Pathetic.
What he means is he tried playing an mp3 in Totem and it required extra packages to be downloaded that then brought up the legal message.
I don't care about this it is an American complaining about a UK distribution.
It sucks to be you living it the US guess you'll have to purchase fluendo codecs instead of getting them for free like many other countries.
The author of this stupid post must also be exetremely lazy. A quick google gives you this information right away! Go away troll.
It is only in selected places such is the US where the stupidities of such laws get debated. So why not change the title from "Do "Illegal" Codecs Actually Scare Linux Users?" to "Do "Illegal" Codecs Actually Scare US Linux Users?"
I don't believe you when you say this is hindering your decision on switching to Linux as its the lamest excuse I have heard yet.
If the laws changed and the software was not updated then Canonical could have a lawsuit on their hands.
There is a reason that OGG is not included on most embedded devices and that is because it requires more processing power then the MP3 format.
More processing power means more expensive CPUs have to go into the embedded device.
You're assuming everyone is from a country where software patents are enforced.
Some countries such as the UK don't believe in software patents therefore are not breaking the law.
I laughed when I saw this article.
This is just making excuses not to use Linux because they can't think of any real ones.
Patent issues are a pain in the ass and anything written to stop even one patent issue going to court is better in my opinion then just saying "well its not THAT much better". Saying that its still not effective enough doesn't negate the fact that you just stated one patent issue that is fixed with the new license.I am confused by what you are saying. Are you saying that if I propagate my source code in GPL 2 (copy and paste it) that the GPL no longer applies? Why should I have to re-think that?
Could you be more clear and propagating and distribution seem to be the same things to me.I do not think it is as easy as you think. You have an encrypted binary running on a locked down embedded device. I think it would be difficult to figure out what a phone that ran Linux (like Motorola A1200) is doing without some kind of access to the internals of the phone.Can you really expect the Linux kernel to be effective when you need a Linus Torvalds to understand it?
A license is only good if there are no problems with it. If you have lawyers debating what the "spirit of the license" means in the courtroom it wastes the FSF and programmers money on lawyers trying to win the case.
By clearly laying out what the spirit means into the license there is no need for a debate. Sure you and I know what the spirit means but a judge won't and the lawyers would have to convince a judge what it actually means before they could determine if a party had actually violated it.