On Feb 6, 2008 9:11 PM, Stephan Kulow
Am Dienstag, 5. Februar 2008 schrieb Stephan Kulow:
* the DVD5 does not have any non-oss software on it - this will allow for a simplified EULA - the non-oss medium will continue to have the old EULA then
Looks like Francis was the only one to actually read my status report and it caused some discussion at the end of the IRC meeting.
So I would like to clarify some bits: - we won't take the non-oss repo away and it will be easy to download flash, acroread or your preferred application - we will continue providing a non-oss addon CD with a stricter EULA - we want to make the EULA _really_ simple in using only OSS, currently the EULA (if you read it) forbids you to distribute copies of your downloaded openSUSE - because of the non-oss software bundled
So the question is: do we (as project) want to set a sign in making it a bit more difficult to install non-oss software or is the ease of use preferred over a simply license? We're very open for your feedback, but Michl, AJ and me as openSUSE management team would prefer to use open source only on the default medium.
Just to clarify my concerns/problems: * Having access to the non-oss software is certainly very handy. The user doesn't even have to think about anything extra in the installation, and when it's up they have things like Flash, MP3 support, and Java already up-and-running (there is hope for free Java). These are things that at least 99% of users will be using, without a doubt. When it's all on one medium, it's definitely easier -- no need to download extra ISOs, burn them, check extra options during the install, etc. * It seems to me like this system has worked pretty well for quite a long time: it's clear that it directly benefits 99.95% of users, and it's not apparent that we get much stick for it (the only time I remember is the fosdem mention from some debian people last year, but even there I think it's more an issue of just marketing). Needless to say, complaints about this are very rare and don't seem to be very prominent or persistent AFAICS. * I love software freedom and I try to avoid proprietary software at all costs. openSUSE still (and has had for a long time) has some very easy OSS options -- the CDs. The CDs contain no non-essential proprietary software; anyone not wanting to download any proprietary software (even in an ISO) could always use one of the 1 CDs. In my opinion we're hardly doing anything different when we provide a non-OSS add-on CD to when we have a DVD with mixed software, since it's still very clear that you can install from the CDs for a 'purer' OSS environment. * Someone already made the remark that it's not easy in all places to get access to the Internet. openSUSE Indonesia community specifically mentioned that this is one of their major problems. For people who are _just_ given the DVD now there's an even bigger step back. * I know many people haven't complained about this issue yet, partly perhaps because many don't know (I guess time on the list will tell), but also because I believe the main complainers will come after the release -- those who don't follow the development and don't try the betas. My father, for example, is not so happy about it ;-) That said, if we do decide to go fully OSS for the DVD way I don't think it will be the most devastating thing in the world and that we can make it better by allowing the non-OSS repo to be enabled during the install (as we do for the CDs), and making it clear that the packages are being downloaded from the Internet (so users don't complain about the longer installation time). That's all for now. Any thoughts? Kind thoughts, -- Francis Giannaros http://francis.giannaros.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org