Hi, we discussed already once [1] the situation with proprietary software on our distribution. We agreed on the list and in an IRC project meeting that it's not nice but is very convenient for many users and should stay therefor on media. I'm opening the discussion again as with that we never will achieve a user friendly licence as already copying of our software on DVD is not allowed and even some mirrors have an issue with this licence. We receive on a regular base inquiries in this regards and bad press [2]. Here is our proposal for new discussion. *Ship any media of openSUSE with open source software and proprietary software which allows redistribution (eg. firmware), for details [3]. *Add during installation automatically an online repo with the non-OSS stuff and install per default flashplayer (5MB) and the fluendo plug-in (210K) for mp3. This would allow us to offer a user friendly end user licence agreement (EULA) and would remove the cause of bad press and angry users reading the EULA really carefully. Some background info: - survey of usage of proprietary[4] software showed that only flashplayer and acroread really are used by a majority of users (Java is not an issue anymore as we ship with 11.1 openJDK) - with the distribution of 90%+ of broadband access amongst our users flashplayer via online repo shouldn't be a problem. And without internet access flashplayer won't be an issue for anybody. - For acroread we're sure that the open source alternatives (kpdf, evince, okular) are at same level with acroread. The only drawback we're aware of is the missing functionality PDF Forms offers today. We're asking for your buy-in for having a more friendly EULA, to make the distribution of openSUSE easier and get the software in more hands. BTW: we'll replace the proprietary agfa-fonts with the open source alternative Liberation fonts with openSUSE 11.1. Best Michael [1] http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2007-07/msg00050.html [2] http://lwn.net/Articles/283555/ [3] http://en.opensuse.org/Non_oss_software [4] http://files.opensuse.org/opensuse/en/c/ce/SurveySummary_proprietary_softwar... -- Michael Löffler, Product Management SUSE LINUX Products GmbH - Nürnberg - AG Nürnberg - HRB 16746 - GF: Markus Rex -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org