This could have been immensely useful to a lot of commercial vendors, and Stallman knew it, so he used the GPL (not even LGPL) to try and "force" third party code to be GPL'd.
Wrong. Stallman wants to impell PROPRIETARY towards freedom for their users, since readline is so useful, it has made some sofware become GPL because of it.
Richard is happy that Free Software (GPL'ed or not) is sold commercially, either by itself or embbeded in services, what he isn't happy about is for software that has its users submit to the author.
As a result, nobody outside the free software world uses it.
All software should be free as in freedom, so I completely fail to see the problem here. Popularity is a shallow goal, so you should aim for freedom for everyone, instead of popularity. If you respect your users and your software is good, popularity will likely come.
However, if popularity is your goal, you will likely start disregarding many good choices because they can be seen by some as not so popular...
Funny you should quote a very small part of what I wrote to criticise and refute none of my clarifications, which refute your accusations, and only use it to try to "insult" me by trying to portray me as "barking mad".
And money isn't something to believe, you religious clod;)
Money is an unfortunate necessity artificially created by man and which is now quite hard to ignore (they might arrest you, for instance, if try not to pay for many things;)).
When he says that you can make a living from the GPL he really means you can live like him.
Please tell that to RedHat, they don't seem to agree with you...
The whole objective of GPL is deliberately and explicitly to prevent commercial exploitation. If you think differently then you have never met RMS in person and listened to him for more than 30 minutes.
*Cough*cough*cough* The whole objective of GPL is deliberately and explicitly to prevent PROPRIETARY exploitation.
Please don't use ``commercial'' as a synonym for ``non-free.'' That confuses two entirely different issues.
A program is commercial if it is developed as a business activity. A commercial program can be free or non-free, depending on its license. Likewise, a program developed by a school or an individual can be free or non-free, depending on its license. The two questions, what sort of entity developed the program and what freedom its users have, are independent.
In the first decade of the Free Software Movement, free software packages were almost always noncommercial; the components of the GNU/Linux operating system were developed by individuals or by nonprofit organizations such as the FSF and universities. But in the 90s, free commercial software started to appear.
Free commercial software is a contribution to our community, so we should encourage it. But people who think that ``commercial'' means ``non-free'' will tend to think that the ``free commercial'' combination is self-contradictory, and dismiss the possibility. Let's be careful not to use the word ``commercial'' in that way.
By saying what you just wrote, either you prove you have a weak understanding of english, or a deliberate intention to lie.
Why would you feel guilty for not using a F/OSS operating system? This is just ideology run amuck. Programmers and engineers need to eat too. We can't all work for free.
And why would you think Free Software stops programmers and/or engineers from eating? Free Software is great for custom software, which happens to be one of the the biggest software market sections, if not the biggest...
Simple as that. Don't excuse your inability to use two buffers with perceived bugs of the way one buffer acts. The way for PRIMARY is to do just that. Copy on Select. Get that into your head then ask your self this question:
If PRIMARY is used with Copy on Select, and if I select one thing here and another there, WHY should PRIMARY keep the first one?
Use CLIPBOARD (Control+c) instead of PRIMARY, by all means, instead of launching attacks to something you don't even know how to use.
You're still confusing the two clipboard buffers, named CLIPBOARD and PRIMARY into one single buffer, which is not true. They are TWO different buffers that co-exist perfectly well.
Once you get the hang of PRIMARY, you'll never want anything else (except the collaboration of CLIPBOARD, the other buffer that you use when you do C-c).
Select with the left button pressed, and click with the middle button in the target window to paste.
That can cause serious problems. What if I just want to select some text (but not cut&paste)? It would overwrite whatever I had in my clipboard (or whatever it's called).
Tsk. X has more than one buffer. The one you're used to on Mac's and Windows' is CLIPBOARD (IIRC) and the one he refers to (copy on select, paste with a click) is the PRIMARY buffer.
One of the things I hate the most on Windows UI is lack of copy on select.
Surely you can accidently erase the PRIMARY buffer, so what? So can you accidently erase the CLIPBOARD buffer... it's just as easy.
And with GNOME and KDE, you can even "forget" that PRIMARY exists at all, since there's CLIPBOARD working as you expected all the time.
Now... the real master uses PRIMARY and CLIPBOARD to copy&paste different portions of text on one go:)
Well, in A) that huge (and, I suspect, speculative) number is thrown out of the country. Any economist will tell you that giving money away without a return is worthless.
In B) what happens is that the money is not sent away
Now, what is the return of software? What you do with it. Fewer and fewer tasks still can't be done with Free Software. However, we're catching some of the most massive everywhere, normal desktop server, etc... the rest will come eventually.
The point is that the money will be generated by the services made with the software on the country itself WITHOUT giving money away from the country.
Not true at all. The closed portion of the nVidia drivers is only the X driver.
The kernel module is and has always been open source, and you can compile it for whatever version of the kernel you wish (assuming the kernel module interface hasn't changed drastically, of course).
This is a completely bogus statement. More than so, it's so false that it reeks of lack of either knowledge or good intentions.
In order to work around module versioning limitations or to give a chance for people with different kernels than the officially supported, nVidia provides a wrapper source that is what is compiled as a module, all the intelligence being in the binary only driver that is injected by this "open source" code.
If you are, as I hope, only talking without a clue, then it stands as one more evidence that nVidia succeeds in convincing people that they don't provide binary modules.
Go ahead and type:/sbin/lsmod
Do you like that Tainted flag? That's a signal of how "open source" that driver is.
I just hope you don't ever bother the Linux developers with weird problems on your system, specifically those involving 'oops'es and whatnot. Not only you'll be wasting their time, but also you might get silence, pity, mocking, or other reactions.
The rest of the world does not speak english. If you use the rest of the world "richer than english" languages, you usually have a word for Free that is totally non-confusing. In Portuguese, it is Livre, so I say Software Livre. French say "Libre Software", in Castellan it's "Software Libre", etc...
All Software Livre can be commercialized, and pretty much of it actually _is_. FSF is not twisting anything by saying that the Free they speak of is of Freedom. It is unfourtunate that it is also a synonym for gratis. Tough luck, but I know English enough to understand when they say "think free as in speech, not free beer".
Apparently, a lot of native english speakers don't understand that, which is baffling.
Firstly, you must clear your speech since it makes little sense. There's no middle ground between GPL'ed code and commercial end programs: look at RedHat EL... lot's of GPL'ed code, 1800 EUR per box of CD's sold. Looks pretty commercial.
What. You. Probably. Mean. Is. Proprietary/Non-Free end program. That is evil, you wish to hold your fellow humans under your hold.
Secondly, I think you are confusing zero-price with freedom, when you're speaking of 'free'. You want to have source code you can use for gratis, but you couldn't care less about the users of said software.
Free Software is not necessarily gratis, but is so frequently, and the maintainence costs are about as much as ou are unskilled.
Free Software is software you can run for any purpose, study and modify, and distribute copies, modified or not.
Since the GPL fullfills this 4 freedomsit is Free Software. It adds a restriction on copying though, those who receive copies, modified or not, must have no less freedom than you had.
Software licensed under the BSD does not make sure that happens, and as such eventually someone will be forced to use some software which is non-Free, which is a great evil imposed on that person.
Both are Free Software programs, but one of them makes sure _all_ users will still have those 4 freedoms.
If you think that is bad, then I can only pity those who pay for your lack of social conscience.
AbiWord supports the OO.o format, but it is not it's native format, neither it is going to be in the short run, for sure.
Re:What about those of us
on
CNet on WinFS
·
· Score: 1
who like the filesystem the way it is. I can find any file in my system within 3 or 4 clicks of a mouse because I keep my files organized. How is the new system going to be faster than that? I don't understand how searching for files every time you need them is faster than a file system hierarchy.
Maybe not for us, but many people don't have that kind of hierarquical organization, and thus searching is faster.
I would suspect that XML will be used to store metadata from files, and not the files by themselves, and that the SQL database will just be yet another way to store file information, leaving the _real_ files in a normal way.
That said, this is very terrible news. Longhorn is Microsoft's NGSCB (previously known as Palladium, aka Treacherous Computing Platform Alliance software complement to the hardware lockout) and that they're making this huge changes to their file system coupled with Treacherous Computing, that doesn't sound like good news to the world of Free Software.
My only hope is that by the time Longhorn gets here, the world is Free enough so that it flunks.... utterly and completely.
A long time ago when I still used non-free software, there was this pretty usefull MacOS application called SuperPaint which incorporated Paint and Draw (it rocked...).
As for UI, well, I just had to click a swap view button and the tool bars would change to something appropriate.
Easy. Source distribution should be optional. If I recommend a free piece of software to somebody in the windows world I want it to come in one downloadable file, with an installer with lots of dialogue boxes.
this was moderated as Insightful? Funny at the most if it was cynical humour:) Anyway, for those that don't even know what's Free Software and could be fooled by such a statement, here's a short piece of information:
Check the link, but in short, any software which is licensed in such a way that you are free to: 0. run the program, for any purpose; 1. study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (you need source code for this); 2. redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor; and finally 3. improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (you need source code for this) then that said software is Free Software.
The GNU GPL, the most applied Free Software license allows you to do all that, but if you give copies, wether modified or not, the very same rights you have, you have to share.
Many distributions distribute source code alongside the binaries because that's the easiest (and also the cheapest) way to comply with the terms of many Free Software licenses (namely that you need the code to be able to exercise your freedoms properly), but I'd say that most non technical users won't even touch a line of code (leaving the work for the geek friend or consultant).
Installing software can be as hard as typing: apt-get install ThisProgram (under Debian GNU/Linux), which will automatize the process of finding any unsatisfied dependencies and installing all you'll need for running ThisProgram. In some cases, it even suggests other additional optional packages that will improve ThisProgram's capabilities.
Now compare with: download; double click; pass through a lot of PITA dialogs (get some options wrong by the way); then maybe reboot.
Not funny at all:)
Don't take it wrong, it's a common mistake. But I hope I was clear enough.
If people can be saved from low paying jobs that require little to no brain usage, if that increases human productivity and that improvement is returned for people to do things that demand creativity (which is something we all know machines aren't really good at), you know, things like art, science, philosophy, love et all...
How can it be bad, really?
Sure some people will have some trouble adapting in the first couple of generations (namely those that will get unemplyed). It sucks really bad (specially if the increased productivity is only used to make some richer instead of supporting those that do not know how to do anything else) but isn't that worthwhile if in two or three generations all humanity can do great things instead of unsatisfying jobs?
measure a product on it's ease of use, stability, security, cost, etc.
measure _only_ the technical stuff? What about licenses? Are they to be forgotten? Do you think that non-free software even allows you to surely run the software for any purpose? You're so wrong... value your freedom. In freedom there is much choice.
it seems that exchange is a rather nasty program to admin, but it also seems that groupwise from novell is quite good
Abandon one master while seeking another master. Not a smart decision, mind you. Addicted to having an owner, perhaps?
we just need mostly simple email, but all the collaborative features are good.
Two flaws: one, this suggests you don't need the collaborative features, second, why assume you have no collaborative choices in Free Software? Maybe not exactly the way you're used to, but then, novelty is in change.
just let the best program win
And how can software that teaches our kids that sharing is wrong, that learning how software works is wrong, etc... helps this software you're advocating become best?
Pragmatic is not the one who chooses the shortest road. The true pragmatic will look beyond the short term benefits and make sure that in the long run the benefits are still there. Don't listen to this guy, he still has a lot to learn.
Those distributions perpetuate the mistake. They should probably be called RedHat GNU/Linux and Gentoo GNU/Linux. Debian get's it right though: Debian GNU/Linux.
It all boils down to what do you call an operating system. The kernel alone or the kernel plus all that's around? I mean, you don't call Microsoft Windows win32.dll do you? (or whatever it's kernel is named) You just call it Microsoft Windows, or Windows for short when the context makes the meaning clear.
However, I don't view an operating system as something that just boots. It's got to be able to do things with it. I support the GNU/Linux nomenclature. When Linus created the Linux kernel, lo and behold, like magic there were all this fantastic things that an Operating System needs... where did they come from? Nowadays, many people think Linus and his minions created the whole operating system... *sigh*. Couldn't be farther from the truth.
That probably wouldn't be a GNU/Linux operating system, but it wouldn't be the Linux operating system either. It would be something else running the Linux kernel as well.
On http://live.guadec.org/audiovideo.html I can read:
Live 150kps Real Video Stream from Burke Theatre
I'm sorry, but I feel it is extremely awkward that a project aimed at making people use a Free Software desktop promotes using non-free software.
I can understand the motivation and how it may have been well intended, but this should not continue.
At least some formats have Free Software that can interpretate them, even if they are patent encumbered in some unfortunate countries like the USA (let's hope we can avoid software patents in Europe:
http://swpat.ffii.org - hurry because we have little time and we've just
lost one of the battles with the JURI voting).
I know Ogg Theora isn't ready yet, but it works quite well (although maybe not yet for streaming). I've very recently made some tests and hope to publish some Ogg Theora
videos soon of Stallman's speech in Portugal on the 9th of June, accompanied with the player and encoder apps (built
statically) since the format is not yet finalized and as it may chage, the code used to code and decode those videos must be preserved.
hmms... you're right on the part where you got to be somethinng in the beginning.
OpenSource != FreeSoftware, but OpenSource does bring more freedom, odd isn't it?
WTF? Are you even mildly aware of the absurdity of what you just said?
Please allow me to first make it well clear that _ANY_ license that is officially recognised by the FSF as a Free Software license is an Open Source License, but
the opposite is not true, since some licenses recognised as Open Source do not give you the four fundamental freedoms. However, there is some irrational belief that BSD=OpenSource and GPL=FreeSoftware. Well, that's true, but the implied meaning is that BSD!=Free Software and GPL!=OpenSource. Well, that's false and absurd. It proves, however, you understand neither of both concepts.
Another sadly common absurdity is that the GPL gives you less freedom than BSD. Well, that is true but only if you hate that nobody can make it non-free, or if enjoy the possibility to harness power over other people, or that eventually somebody does so, or that you just simply won't object until they come after you and there's no one left to object.
Slashdot Mirror
Richard is happy that Free Software (GPL'ed or not) is sold commercially, either by itself or embbeded in services, what he isn't happy about is for software that has its users submit to the author.
All software should be free as in freedom, so I completely fail to see the problem here. Popularity is a shallow goal, so you should aim for freedom for everyone, instead of popularity. If you respect your users and your software is good, popularity will likely come.
However, if popularity is your goal, you will likely start disregarding many good choices because they can be seen by some as not so popular...
And money isn't something to believe, you religious clod
Money is an unfortunate necessity artificially created by man and which is now quite hard to ignore (they might arrest you, for instance, if try not to pay for many things
Please tell that to RedHat, they don't seem to agree with you...
*Cough*cough*cough* The whole objective of GPL is deliberately and explicitly to prevent PROPRIETARY exploitation.
As can be read at the Free Software Foundation's site of confusing words about the word commercial:
By saying what you just wrote, either you prove you have a weak understanding of english, or a deliberate intention to lie.
And yes, quite more than 30 minutes, thank you.
Use CLIPBOARD instead of primary for that action.
Simple as that. Don't excuse your inability to use two buffers with perceived bugs of the way one buffer acts. The way for PRIMARY is to do just that. Copy on Select. Get that into your head then ask your self this question:
If PRIMARY is used with Copy on Select, and if I select one thing here and another there, WHY should PRIMARY keep the first one?
Use CLIPBOARD (Control+c) instead of PRIMARY, by all means, instead of launching attacks to something you don't even know how to use.
You're still confusing the two clipboard buffers, named CLIPBOARD and PRIMARY into one single buffer, which is not true. They are TWO different buffers that co-exist perfectly well.
Once you get the hang of PRIMARY, you'll never want anything else (except the collaboration of CLIPBOARD, the other buffer that you use when you do C-c).
One of the things I hate the most on Windows UI is lack of copy on select.
Surely you can accidently erase the PRIMARY buffer, so what? So can you accidently erase the CLIPBOARD buffer... it's just as easy.
And with GNOME and KDE, you can even "forget" that PRIMARY exists at all, since there's CLIPBOARD working as you expected all the time.
Now... the real master uses PRIMARY and CLIPBOARD to copy&paste different portions of text on one go
Us non USA-citizens demand to vote (every vote helps).
... the BIOS theoretical loophole to Treacherous Computing.
One better start stockpiling computers that still work...
Well, in A) that huge (and, I suspect, speculative) number is thrown out of the country. Any economist will tell you that giving money away without a return is worthless.
In B) what happens is that the money is not sent away
Now, what is the return of software? What you do with it. Fewer and fewer tasks still can't be done with Free Software. However, we're catching some of the most massive everywhere, normal desktop server, etc... the rest will come eventually.
The point is that the money will be generated by the services made with the software on the country itself WITHOUT giving money away from the country.
This is a completely bogus statement. More than so, it's so false that it reeks of lack of either knowledge or good intentions.
In order to work around module versioning limitations or to give a chance for people with different kernels than the officially supported, nVidia provides a wrapper source that is what is compiled as a module, all the intelligence being in the binary only driver that is injected by this "open source" code.
If you are, as I hope, only talking without a clue, then it stands as one more evidence that nVidia succeeds in convincing people that they don't provide binary modules.
Go ahead and type:
Do you like that Tainted flag? That's a signal of how "open source" that driver is.
I just hope you don't ever bother the Linux developers with weird problems on your system, specifically those involving 'oops'es and whatnot. Not only you'll be wasting their time, but also you might get silence, pity, mocking, or other reactions.
The rest of the world does not speak english. If you use the rest of the world "richer than english" languages, you usually have a word for Free that is totally non-confusing. In Portuguese, it is Livre, so I say Software Livre. French say "Libre Software", in Castellan it's "Software Libre", etc...
All Software Livre can be commercialized, and pretty much of it actually _is_. FSF is not twisting anything by saying that the Free they speak of is of Freedom. It is unfourtunate that it is also a synonym for gratis. Tough luck, but I know English enough to understand when they say "think free as in speech, not free beer".
Apparently, a lot of native english speakers don't understand that, which is baffling.
Firstly, you must clear your speech since it makes little sense. There's no middle ground between GPL'ed code and commercial end programs: look at RedHat EL... lot's of GPL'ed code, 1800 EUR per box of CD's sold. Looks pretty commercial.
What. You. Probably. Mean. Is. Proprietary/Non-Free end program. That is evil, you wish to hold your fellow humans under your hold.
Secondly, I think you are confusing zero-price with freedom, when you're speaking of 'free'. You want to have source code you can use for gratis, but you couldn't care less about the users of said software.
Free Software is not necessarily gratis, but is so frequently, and the maintainence costs are about as much as ou are unskilled.
Free Software is software you can run for any purpose, study and modify, and distribute copies, modified or not.
Since the GPL fullfills this 4 freedoms it is Free Software. It adds a restriction on copying though, those who receive copies, modified or not, must have no less freedom than you had.
Software licensed under the BSD does not make sure that happens, and as such eventually someone will be forced to use some software which is non-Free, which is a great evil imposed on that person.
Both are Free Software programs, but one of them makes sure _all_ users will still have those 4 freedoms.
If you think that is bad, then I can only pity those who pay for your lack of social conscience.
AbiWord supports the OO.o format, but it is not it's native format, neither it is going to be in the short run, for sure.
who like the filesystem the way it is. I can find any file in my system within 3 or 4 clicks of a mouse because I keep my files organized. How is the new system going to be faster than that? I don't understand how searching for files every time you need them is faster than a file system hierarchy.
Maybe not for us, but many people don't have that kind of hierarquical organization, and thus searching is faster.
I would suspect that XML will be used to store metadata from files, and not the files by themselves, and that the SQL database will just be yet another way to store file information, leaving the _real_ files in a normal way.
That said, this is very terrible news. Longhorn is Microsoft's NGSCB (previously known as Palladium, aka Treacherous Computing Platform Alliance software complement to the hardware lockout) and that they're making this huge changes to their file system coupled with Treacherous Computing, that doesn't sound like good news to the world of Free Software.
My only hope is that by the time Longhorn gets here, the world is Free enough so that it flunks.... utterly and completely.
A long time ago when I still used non-free software, there was this pretty usefull MacOS application called SuperPaint which incorporated Paint and Draw (it rocked...).
As for UI, well, I just had to click a swap view button and the tool bars would change to something appropriate.
So yeah, I think its relatively simple.
American companies (namely SMEs) ARE easily beaten inside the US by fellow american companies holders of several software patents.
Who's got the time to write this up and modify their web site? Better if somebody makes up a standard page we can all copy.
/. management, please send this article into the main page...
How about these example pages?
Easy. Source distribution should be optional. If I recommend a free piece of software to somebody in the windows world I want it to come in one downloadable file, with an installer with lots of dialogue boxes.
:) Anyway, for those that don't even know what's Free Software and could be fooled by such a statement, here's a short piece of information:
:)
this was moderated as Insightful? Funny at the most if it was cynical humour
Check the link, but in short, any software which is licensed in such a way that you are free to: 0. run the program, for any purpose; 1. study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (you need source code for this); 2. redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor; and finally 3. improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (you need source code for this) then that said software is Free Software.
The GNU GPL, the most applied Free Software license allows you to do all that, but if you give copies, wether modified or not, the very same rights you have, you have to share.
dmorin is obviously confusing the GNU GPL with Free Software in general, which is one common mistake. There's a lot of Free Software that is not GPL'ed. Click here for a detailed analysis of Free Software licenses, GPL compatible and incompatible, and of non-Free Software licenses..
Many distributions distribute source code alongside the binaries because that's the easiest (and also the cheapest) way to comply with the terms of many Free Software licenses (namely that you need the code to be able to exercise your freedoms properly), but I'd say that most non technical users won't even touch a line of code (leaving the work for the geek friend or consultant).
Installing software can be as hard as typing: apt-get install ThisProgram (under Debian GNU/Linux), which will automatize the process of finding any unsatisfied dependencies and installing all you'll need for running ThisProgram. In some cases, it even suggests other additional optional packages that will improve ThisProgram's capabilities.
Now compare with: download; double click; pass through a lot of PITA dialogs (get some options wrong by the way); then maybe reboot.
Not funny at all
Don't take it wrong, it's a common mistake. But I hope I was clear enough.
If people can be saved from low paying jobs that require little to no brain usage, if that increases human productivity and that improvement is returned for people to do things that demand creativity (which is something we all know machines aren't really good at), you know, things like art, science, philosophy, love et all...
How can it be bad, really? Sure some people will have some trouble adapting in the first couple of generations (namely those that will get unemplyed). It sucks really bad (specially if the increased productivity is only used to make some richer instead of supporting those that do not know how to do anything else) but isn't that worthwhile if in two or three generations all humanity can do great things instead of unsatisfying jobs?
measure a product on it's ease of use, stability, security, cost, etc.
measure _only_ the technical stuff? What about licenses? Are they to be forgotten? Do you think that non-free software even allows you to surely run the software for any purpose? You're so wrong... value your freedom. In freedom there is much choice.
it seems that exchange is a rather nasty program to admin, but it also seems that groupwise from novell is quite good
Abandon one master while seeking another master. Not a smart decision, mind you. Addicted to having an owner, perhaps?
we just need mostly simple email, but all the collaborative features are good.
Two flaws: one, this suggests you don't need the collaborative features, second, why assume you have no collaborative choices in Free Software? Maybe not exactly the way you're used to, but then, novelty is in change.
just let the best program win
And how can software that teaches our kids that sharing is wrong, that learning how software works is wrong, etc... helps this software you're advocating become best?
Pragmatic is not the one who chooses the shortest road. The true pragmatic will look beyond the short term benefits and make sure that in the long run the benefits are still there. Don't listen to this guy, he still has a lot to learn.
Those distributions perpetuate the mistake. They should probably be called RedHat GNU/Linux and Gentoo GNU/Linux. Debian get's it right though: Debian GNU/Linux.
It all boils down to what do you call an operating system. The kernel alone or the kernel plus all that's around? I mean, you don't call Microsoft Windows win32.dll do you? (or whatever it's kernel is named) You just call it Microsoft Windows, or Windows for short when the context makes the meaning clear.
However, I don't view an operating system as something that just boots. It's got to be able to do things with it. I support the GNU/Linux nomenclature. When Linus created the Linux kernel, lo and behold, like magic there were all this fantastic things that an Operating System needs... where did they come from? Nowadays, many people think Linus and his minions created the whole operating system... *sigh*. Couldn't be farther from the truth.
That probably wouldn't be a GNU/Linux operating system, but it wouldn't be the Linux operating system either. It would be something else running the Linux kernel as well.
In short: then it should not be done.
On http://live.guadec.org/audiovideo.html I can read:
Live 150kps Real Video Stream from Burke Theatre
I'm sorry, but I feel it is extremely awkward that a project aimed at making people use a Free Software desktop promotes using non-free software.
I can understand the motivation and how it may have been well intended, but this should not continue.
At least some formats have Free Software that can interpretate them, even if they are patent encumbered in some unfortunate countries like the USA (let's hope we can avoid software patents in Europe: http://swpat.ffii.org - hurry because we have little time and we've just lost one of the battles with the JURI voting).
I know Ogg Theora isn't ready yet, but it works quite well (although maybe not yet for streaming). I've very recently made some tests and hope to publish some Ogg Theora videos soon of Stallman's speech in Portugal on the 9th of June, accompanied with the player and encoder apps (built statically) since the format is not yet finalized and as it may chage, the code used to code and decode those videos must be preserved.
hmms... you're right on the part where you got to be somethinng in the beginning.
OpenSource != FreeSoftware, but OpenSource does bring more freedom, odd isn't it?
WTF? Are you even mildly aware of the absurdity of what you just said?
Please allow me to first make it well clear that _ANY_ license that is officially recognised by the FSF as a Free Software license is an Open Source License, but the opposite is not true, since some licenses recognised as Open Source do not give you the four fundamental freedoms.
However, there is some irrational belief that BSD=OpenSource and GPL=FreeSoftware. Well, that's true, but the implied meaning is that BSD!=Free Software and GPL!=OpenSource. Well, that's false and absurd. It proves, however, you understand neither of both concepts.
Another sadly common absurdity is that the GPL gives you less freedom than BSD. Well, that is true but only if you hate that nobody can make it non-free, or if enjoy the possibility to harness power over other people, or that eventually somebody does so, or that you just simply won't object until they come after you and there's no one left to object.