The Linux movement is not getting off track by this issue... We can hardly go about forbidding companies to develop software for Linux, even if it's closed source, and morally wrong. The existance of this program doesn't mean that we can't go on using the Free alternatives and even DECSS ... By the way, SuSE is in no way obligated to distribute linDVD, and even if it chooses to do so, it can be an addition to the existing players. And like they asked "Pratchette considers IBM's work a start, not a standard, instead hoping that perhaps the Linux community will define a standard interface for this"... well we can all tell them what to do with that, can't we? Including decss would be extremely brave, but let's not forget that SuSE is a company. It has employees and needs to make money. If SuSE goes down, a lot of people are out of a job, and than forced to go work for some M$ loving company! And yes, I also think they should make yast Open Source... but the choice is theirs. Open Source has to be a choice (unless you use code that was Open Source originally), made freely by whoever creates a program. The MPAA is behaving like the mafia, they spy on people using napster, intercepting their transmissions and determening wether their download is legal. But what if it is, if I'm transfering my personally sung MP3's that nobody would like to hear... Then they would have invaded my privacy (aswell as being shocked by the contents ;-) )! And if I'm not mistaken, in many countries, that's a crime to do without a search warrant. What I don't understand is that when I buy a DVD player, I own it, just as I own my car, why can I not do whatever I want with it? Isn't it mine than? But that's not a Linux issue... but something worth fighting for... Maybe we should all stop buying DVD's, Video's and CD's for a month... let's see how they like that!

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On 19/04/2001, 10:33:17, "Purple Shirt" wrote regarding [SLE] linux discussion:

Hi,

I know some of you don't like some of the recent discussions but I just feel the Linux movement is getting off track.

Look at this article:

http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/04/18/1542224&mode=nocomment

Well thanks to IBM for supporting Linux but I would never buy this machine if I knew a percentage of my dollars went to Intervideo and eventually to some monopolistic movie corp. If I own a DVD I have the right to play whenever with whatever.

[snip]

Lets face it, compromises have to be made sometimes. As Mr. Kreps pointed out IBM is doing alot in the way of supporting the Linux movement. Ya- they're in it for the money, ya-they have stock holders to answer to. But consider the alternative - M$?. I've recently read some industry articles from publications that critique the XP, .Net, and the HailStorm products and market strategy and frankly it's pretty scarry stufff (and I mean scarry). Lets face it, like the conflicts between paradigms such as medicine and business, wherein medicine is to alleviate pain, suffering, both physical and mental and business is to find new markets and products and exploit them. So goes the GPL and the capitalistic nature of business. It's about being smart, careful, and compromise. Granted, the nature of capitalism is to exploit markets - and the key word is exploit! But as long as the GPL remains strong Linux will remain reasonably safe. Remember that the GPL doesn't feed the bulldog (or pay the rent, utilities, groceries, etc) - money does. However the GPL does create innovation (despite what M$ say) and value. Just my 2 cents. Curtis Rey On Thursday 19 April 2001 03:33, Purple Shirt wrote:

Hi,

I know some of you don't like some of the recent discussions but I just feel the Linux movement is getting off track.

Look at this article: http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/04/18/1542224&mode=nocomment

Well thanks to IBM for supporting Linux but I would never buy this machine if I knew a percentage of my dollars went to Intervideo and eventually to some monopolistic movie corp. If I own a DVD I have the right to play whenever with whatever.

I know IBM is also just out there to make a buck but it just shows Linux and commercialism have a problem mixing.

Now if SuSE starts shipping with Intervideo's LinDVD in the future you can be sure I will not buy it. Can somebody tell me if there is pay software in the distribution SuSE have to give up a percentage of their sales for?

Have all these companies become wussies? IBM doesn't want to get a lawsuit from the Mega-Corps. Oh great. Let it fight the small guy like the FSF.

I want SuSE to include deCSS with their distribution but I will never see this happen because its all about the money these days. I know they would have to exclude deCSS from the US version but last I knew deCSS wasn't outlawed in Europe. But no we just sit back and let somebody else take on the fight and muddle with some other stuff nobody cares about when they have trampled down every fucking right to do anything with media.

You think the German government would force a shutdown of their only OS company which seems to be striving because of a fucking 500 lines of code? Maybe but at least the public would become aware and this would turn into huge farce of where copyrights and mega corps have led us. At least have the guts to put a copy of deCSS on the European ftp servers.

I know this is asking for a flamewar but I don't care. I don't care because no matter how good the KDE media player is SuSE delivers me. If I don't have the right to freely access my DVD under Linux even the best free media player is useless.

But it is all too late now. SuSE should have created a deCSS package right when it came out more than a year ago. A small biz like copyleft can manage to keep the code alive on their site but SuSE can't get up to do something to move forward the freedom claims of the Linux users. Yeah I can't wait for the day SuSE ships with a Intervideo Linux DVD player and we all succumb to the prorietory hands again. It will be the day piracy will take another step into Linux. It will be the day you surf over to astalavista.box.sk to score some crack to get the full version just like with VMware. I remember a few weeks ago when a guy on this board asked if somebody would offer a valid full-license VMware code for trade (exchange for zilch). God what a shame. What have we us gotten into? Such thing would have been a non-issue 2 years ago.

If you ask me Linux hasn't gone anywhere in the last 2 years except at making hardware detection easier, supporting more types of hardware, an XF86 upgrade, an the intro of journal file systems. All this KDE stuff is just packaging for the attention crowd and the rare Windows convent. bash is still bash. XF86 is still XF86. Netscape is still Netscape. Pine is still Pine. Samba is still Samba.

Every release we hear what great improvements were made to SuSE Linux. There is no doubt that it evolves but does it evolve into the direction we want it to evolve?

Some of you may say now it is not SuSE's job to fight for deCSS and it would risk the doom of their company. I don't care because if SuSE was 100% open source it would be meaningless if SuSE died because we could pick up SuSE's remnants and keep on working as non-corp, but with yast being proprietory you can't do that. If SuSE goes down it will go down, period. No possibility to bring it back as non-profit because the code has vanished into neverland.

I don't know but it seems one has to become the prison bitch in this type of environment or go all out for non-profit status and community effort to actually be free of corporate interest.

There is much more at issue here with SuSE and Linux than just plucking down 70 bucks for their distro every 6 months and shutting up.

mk

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* Purple Shirt [Thu, 19 Apr 2001 08:33:17 ]:

I want SuSE to include deCSS with their distribution but I will never see this happen because its all about the money these days. I know they would have to exclude deCSS from the US version but last I knew deCSS wasn't outlawed in Europe. But no we just sit back and let somebody else take on the fight and muddle with some other stuff nobody cares about when they have trampled down every fucking right to do anything with media.

Using a program like deCSS also violates German laws. We just won't do something that's illegal in Germany or would violate patents or license restrictions valid for Germany/EU. Yes, we want to do Business, *stay* in it and not risk the company. What's wrong with that? Would you rather like to see us going bankrupt because of the costs of the legal actions that are bound to happen? Philipp Philipp -- Linux only became possible because 20 years of OS research was carefully studied, analyzed, discussed and thrown away. Ingo Molnar on linux-kernel