On Tue, 2006-02-28 at 09:16 -0500, Joseph M. Gaffney wrote: <snip>
Ahh... the old "well we have to, so its ok" sentiment.
I hate that sentiment. I find it... well, I don't think I want to say it.
At what point does the inclusion of closed source with the kernel end? At what point do we, as consumers, say no? Sorry you think differently, but they *are* caring about the freedom of the users, not only the freedom of their software. MPEG, DVD (specifically CSS encryption), DRM, etc, now has HDCP to join the group, the biggest nightmare I will ever see. None of these HDCP compliant devices out there work correctly, and even better, do not work with each other at all. If you're going to buy something HDCP, be damn sure you're getting it all from the same company at the same time... you'll run into problems, still, but less than any other way.
I mention this because its the same thing. CSS encryption is weak and uneccessary. Region encoding was done only so Hollywood could control their release cycle to milk movies for all that they've got. MPEG is not the end-all be-all of video codecs, plenty of others have come up with better codecs now. For example, the BBC with DIRAC, designed for HD. Or Ogg Theora.
Why do we have DVD's with encryption? Because you, Siegbert, are ok with being forced into a certain path. Me? I'm not. Let the manufacturers do their job, and support me as a customer. They can put what needs to be closed somewhere in userspace, and open the rest. Short of that, I have no interest in using them.
I want to make sure I understand the whole thing about closed source drivers. How long have the manufacturers had to comply to the -new- way of providing userspace drivers? I think all need to know the timeline involved here to properly access the impact on whether or not they upgrade their OS. I certainly do. Why should I upgrade to a newer kernel version that keeps me from using hardware that currently works? -- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE since 1998