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On Mon, Aug 22, 2005 at 8:01 pm, in message <200508221001.29179.adrian@suse.de>, adrian@suse.de wrote: On Monday 22 August 2005 09:56, Juraj Trenkler wrote: Po 22. August 2005 09:45 Ben wrote: Kaffeine is not working at all on SuSE 10 beta 2, yes it will start up but there is no video or sound. It is a old problem because within 9.3 it was the same, for a while. Is there allready a solution for SuSE 10? Or will it come with 10 beta 3.

On my notebook I have video with Kaffeine, Xine or Totem but no sound. There are always problems with sound (using KDE). I can hear mp3 files only with Audacity, but not with Amarok or jukebox. Vobis Ogg files are OK in jukebox and Audacity but not in Amarok.

again, the xine library is stripped for legal reasons. Only some codecs can be played therefore with any xine player (like Kaffeine).

...

It is better then with Beta1 which was completely without sound in applications. Noatun has error message on aRts and does not start. I hope this will be better with Beta3.

this is fixed on beta 3. Artsd does start on request now.

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By the way , is it possible to get Mplayer working with the codecs from 9.3/ Lot of questions this time.

There is really no way and we do have an agreement with the MPlayer people that we will not include it as requested by them.

Hi Adrian If anyone of us compiles kaffeine, Mplayer+ codecs and hosts it in a country that is not as strict, would we be allowed to add that yast source to the wiki as additional yast/apt source? Andreas

On Mon, 22 Aug 2005, Kenneth Aar wrote:

Andreas Girardet wrote:

...

If anyone of us compiles kaffeine, Mplayer+ codecs and hosts it in a country that is not as strict, would we be allowed to add that yast source to the wiki as additional yast/apt source?

I am stationed in Norway, we have very liberal laws. So I could host the yast/apt source if necesary. Ofcourse I would be greatfull if someone else could compile it first.

The problem is neither the compiling nor the hosting. We are simply not allowed to promote such a site. You may of course create a yast repository, but users will still have problems to find it then. Berthold -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Berthold Gunreben SUSE Linux GmbH -- Dokumentation mailto:bg@suse.de Maxfeldstr. 5 http://www.suse.de/ D-90409 Nuernberg, Germany

Hi, On Wed, 24 Aug 2005, Philipp Thomas wrote:

Kenneth Aar [22 Aug 2005 14:42:31 +0200]:

...

I am stationed in Norway, we have very liberal laws. So I could host the yast/apt source if necesary.

There already is packman.links2linux.org which you can use both as an installation source for YaST or as an apt4rom repository.

Yes, but currently there is almost nothing but "the stucture": emoenke@ftp:1 02:50:13 /mirr/bin > dir -R /pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/10.0/ /pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/10.0/: insgesamt 52 drwxr-xr-x 11 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:06 . drwxr-xr-x 13 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-12 13:24 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 324 2005-08-15 17:06 content -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 76 2005-08-15 17:06 directory.yast drwxr-xr-x 2 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:02 i386 drwxr-xr-x 2 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:06 i486 drwxr-xr-x 2 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 23:01 i586 drwxr-xr-x 2 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-12 13:24 i686 drwxr-xr-x 2 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:06 media.1 drwxr-xr-x 2 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 22:30 noarch drwxr-xr-x 3 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:06 setup lrwxrwxrwx 1 emoenke ftp 5 2005-08-13 03:18 src -> SRPMS drwxr-xr-x 2 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 22:58 SRPMS drwxr-xr-x 2 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-12 13:29 x86_64 /pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/10.0/i386: insgesamt 8 drwxr-xr-x 2 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:02 . drwxr-xr-x 11 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:06 .. /pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/10.0/i486: insgesamt 8 drwxr-xr-x 2 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:06 . drwxr-xr-x 11 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:06 .. /pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/10.0/i586: insgesamt 13148 drwxr-xr-x 2 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 23:01 . drwxr-xr-x 11 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:06 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 422897 2005-08-15 22:32 divx4linux-20030428-0.pm.0.i586.rpm -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 189 2005-08-15 22:32 divx4linux-20030428-0.pm.0.i586.rpm.asc -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 12995350 2005-08-15 23:01 w32codec-all-20050412-0.pm.0.i586.rpm -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 189 2005-08-15 23:01 w32codec-all-20050412-0.pm.0.i586.rpm.asc /pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/10.0/i686: insgesamt 8 drwxr-xr-x 2 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-12 13:24 . drwxr-xr-x 11 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:06 .. /pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/10.0/media.1: insgesamt 16 drwxr-xr-x 2 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:06 . drwxr-xr-x 11 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:06 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 25 2005-08-15 17:06 media -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 15 2005-08-15 17:06 products /pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/10.0/noarch: insgesamt 40 drwxr-xr-x 2 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 22:30 . drwxr-xr-x 11 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:06 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 26496 2005-08-15 22:30 rpmkey-packman-0.2.2-0.pm.1.noarch.rpm -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 189 2005-08-15 22:30 rpmkey-packman-0.2.2-0.pm.1.noarch.rpm.asc /pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/10.0/setup: insgesamt 12 drwxr-xr-x 3 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:06 . drwxr-xr-x 11 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:06 .. drwxr-xr-x 2 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:06 descr /pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/10.0/setup/descr: insgesamt 40 drwxr-xr-x 2 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:06 . drwxr-xr-x 3 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:06 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 56 2005-08-23 01:17 directory.yast -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 9447 2005-08-23 01:17 EXTRA_PROV -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 3337 2005-08-23 01:17 packages -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 591 2005-08-23 01:17 packages.de -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 1180 2005-08-23 01:17 packages.DU -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 591 2005-08-23 01:17 packages.en /pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/10.0/SRPMS: insgesamt 13148 drwxr-xr-x 2 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 22:58 . drwxr-xr-x 11 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:06 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 417711 2005-08-15 22:29 divx4linux-20030428-0.pm.0.src.rpm -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 189 2005-08-15 22:29 divx4linux-20030428-0.pm.0.src.rpm.asc -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 27098 2005-08-15 22:29 rpmkey-packman-0.2.2-0.pm.1.src.rpm -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 189 2005-08-15 22:29 rpmkey-packman-0.2.2-0.pm.1.src.rpm.asc -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 12969300 2005-08-15 22:58 w32codec-all-20050412-0.pm.0.src.rpm -rw-r--r-- 1 emoenke ftp 189 2005-08-15 22:58 w32codec-all-20050412-0.pm.0.src.rpm.asc /pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/10.0/x86_64: insgesamt 8 drwxr-xr-x 2 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-12 13:29 . drwxr-xr-x 11 emoenke ftp 4096 2005-08-15 17:06 .. emoenke@ftp:1 02:52:00 /mirr/bin > -- Eberhard Moenkeberg (emoenke@gwdg.de, em@kki.org)

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On Thu, Aug 25, 2005 at 5:38 am, in message <200508241938.32949.ben.henderson@planet.nl>, ben.henderson@planet.nl wrote: Op woensdag 24 augustus 2005 02:33, schreef Philipp Thomas: Kenneth Aar [22 Aug 2005 14:42:31 +0200]: I am stationed in Norway, we have very liberal laws. So I could host the yast/apt source if necesary.

There already is packman.links2linux.org which you can use both as an installation source for YaST or as an apt4rom repository.

Philipp

Thats correct, but there is no possabillity to find software for OpenSuSe. I tried to use lins2linux as an installation sourge for Opensuse and that failed offcourse its to soon yet. With SuSE9.3 there is no problem.

There is still a problem with the software like M- player and Kaffeine on legal ways and patents for OpenSuSE and specially for Mplayer. So we need a host i think. Kenneth Aar is willing but how can we make it work without problems with rights en patents?????

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We cannot legally redistribute the binaries or even advertise it on opensuse.org as this is illegal in Germany. In other countries it is not, but I guess opensuse.org is in Germany and certainly gwdg is in .de. The only way seems to compile it in a country that does not prosecute for such acts and host it in Norway and spread the word via word of mouth. Any other suggestions? If Windows is allowed to produce such players, how could we as SUSE do that? There surely must be a way to pay whoever owns the patents some $$ and include such a player at least in the boxed set version of SUSE? I think that such a legal player is desperately needed in SUSE. I would be happy to pay a premium for it. Andreas

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On Thu, Aug 25, 2005 at 9:17 am, in message <200508242317.39937.andjoh@rydsbo.net>, andjoh@rydsbo.net wrote: On Wednesday 24 August 2005 22:46, Andreas Girardet wrote: We cannot legally redistribute the binaries or even advertise it on opensuse.org as this is illegal in Germany.

Is that definite? packman won't host decss, but they seem to have no

problems telling people where to find it, and even providing a script for easy

download and compile

That is the info from SUSE directly at the beginning of this thread. We cannot mention it on our website.

...

If Windows is allowed to produce such players, how could we as SUSE

do

...

that? There surely must be a way to pay whoever owns the patents some $$ and include such a player at least in the boxed set version of SUSE? I think that such a legal player is desperately needed in SUSE. I would be happy to pay a premium for it.

It has been discussed many times

When and where? I must have missed that discussion. Andreas

Andreas Girardet schrieb:

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On Thu, Aug 25, 2005 at 5:38 am, in message

<200508241938.32949.ben.henderson@planet.nl>, ben.henderson@planet.nl wrote:

...

Op woensdag 24 augustus 2005 02:33, schreef Philipp Thomas:

...

Kenneth Aar [22 Aug 2005 14:42:31

+0200]:

...

...

...

I am stationed in Norway, we have very liberal laws. So I could

host the

...

...

...

yast/apt source if necesary.

There already is packman.links2linux.org which you can use both as

an

...

...

installation source for YaST or as an apt4rom repository.

Philipp

Thats correct, but there is no possabillity to find software for

OpenSuSe.

...

I tried to use lins2linux as an installation sourge for Opensuse and

that

...

failed offcourse its to soon yet. With SuSE9.3 there is no problem.

There is still a problem with the software like M- player and

Kaffeine on

...

legal ways and patents for OpenSuSE and specially for Mplayer. So we need a host i think. Kenneth Aar is willing but how can we make it work without problems

with

...

rights en patents?????

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To unsubscribe, e- mail: opensuse- unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e- mail: opensuse- help@opensuse.org

---------------------------------------------------------------------

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To unsubscribe, e- mail: opensuse- unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e- mail: opensuse- help@opensuse.org

We cannot legally redistribute the binaries or even advertise it on opensuse.org as this is illegal in Germany. In other countries it is not, but I guess opensuse.org is in Germany and certainly gwdg is in .de.

The only way seems to compile it in a country that does not prosecute for such acts and host it in Norway and spread the word via word of mouth. Any other suggestions?

If Windows is allowed to produce such players, how could we as SUSE do that? There surely must be a way to pay whoever owns the patents some $$ and include such a player at least in the boxed set version of SUSE? I think that such a legal player is desperately needed in SUSE. I would be happy to pay a premium for it.

Andreas

AFAIK SUSE does only allow three kinds of software to its distro: 1) real OSS 2) some important free proggies, eg Acrobat Reader 3) software for which SUSE is paid for, so called test versions of commercial products. Such a player does not meet one of the three conditions. :-(( Detlef

On Wed, 24 Aug 2005, Andreas Girardet wrote:

I don't really see that, since SLES based products like OES contain commercial software (like edirectory and so on), which requires a license to be paid. As I said. I would not have any issue in paying a license for such a central feature like proper media support. I think that whatever it is there needs to be a way to match what Windows is offering. If rules are there to stop us to be competitive then the rule is wrong. If laws prohibit us to be competitive then we need to find a way to comply to the law either by paying a fee to the copyright holders or by other means. This needs to be sorted ........

This is where OpenSUSE will need to make a choice, right up front, just like Fedora has. The choice Fedora has made: we will not ship software that is encumbered by patents. Why? Because we believe that software patents are dangerous and wrong. And we consequently run into issues of "contributory infringement" and "don't tell users where to get an MP3 player" and all of that stuff -- just like you're running into right now. Red Hat will ship these features with Red Hat products because Red Hat has no choice -- paying customers expect everything to work out of the box. But the Fedora philosophy is different. Every time a user is unable to play an MP3 file, it's an opportunity to educate. Ogg Vorbis is technically on-par, all of the tools and codecs are completely free, and yet the world uses MP3. Imagine a user clicking on an MP3 file, and a mock-player that comes up and plays a pre-loaded OGG explaining why MP3s suck. And if you decide to pay for the use of the MP3 codec, pay for the ability to ship a tool that converts MP3s to OGGs. It's a hard choice. On the one hand: users. On the other hand: freedom. And it's a choice we make in our world all the time. Choose carefully, and good luck as you move forward. I'm excited to be following along. :) --g _____________________ ____________________________________________ Greg DeKoenigsberg ] [ the future masters of technology will have Community Relations ] [ to be lighthearted and intelligent. the Red Hat ] [ machine easily masters the grim and the ] [ dumb. --mcluhan

On Wed, Aug 24, 2005 at 04:59:57PM -0600, Andreas Girardet wrote:

Again Fedora model is not openSUSE model. It is quite different. We actually get to say what is the actual commercial release, but Fedora is codewise not really related to EL.

Well. I don't know how code travels from the fedora into the EL code base, but I know the idea behind the opensuse project, and you're only partly correct with that statement. To explain, I have to look into the future a little bit and talk about features which do not exist yet. Please keep that in mind, and be patient with us during the next months in which we will still be developing the infrastructure needed - and maybe change plans as we go due to new information and better ideas. Yes, the opensuse project model is different from the fedora model (as we perceived it from the outside), but the difference is a different one ;-) We want to offer a way to extend the distribution with additional and / or experimental packages, to build a customized distribution with these (as you are already doing without any help from us anyway ;-)), and to use our build infrastructure for your packages, with all the added conveniences like frequent rebuilds against the latest distribution and guaranteed satisfied package dependencies. This all does not mean that your work and your packages will end up on the retail box or even the OSS version. As this code base is what all other products, including enterprise stuff, will fork from at some point in time, we can't promise you to integrate anything you do into the core distribution. That's why the openSUSE project will be much more than the core distribution. Why should you depend on our decisions what to include on the iso images? The solution is not to make even more CDs, or to introduce a democratic process to decide what packages get "blessed" by inclusion into the distribution. Our solution - so far: our goal - is to make packaging and distributing software easier, and to offer a place to announce and distribute the resulting packages to the world, as part of openSUSE (the project), though not necessarily of SUSE Linux (the core distribution). To get back to the original topic: yes, there are legal questions. Yes, they are being discussed. No, I won't make any statements about them on this list (and would like to recommend others posting from the respective company account not to do so either). And personally I, too, would be happier if everybody would just use OGG. Oh, well. Sonja -- Sonja Krause-Harder (skh@suse.de) openSUSE core team Research & Development SUSE Linux Products GmbH

Thanks Sonja for a great email. And well done on beta3 .....

...

Again Fedora model is not openSUSE model. It is quite different. We actually get to say what is the actual commercial release, but Fedora is codewise not really related to EL.

Yes, the opensuse project model is different from the fedora model (as we perceived it from the outside), but the difference is a different one ;- ) We want to offer a way to extend the distribution with additional and / or experimental packages, to build a customized distribution with these (as you are already doing without any help from us anyway ;- )), and to use our build infrastructure for your packages, with all the added conveniences like frequent rebuilds against the latest distribution and guaranteed satisfied package dependencies.

This all does not mean that your work and your packages will end up on the retail box or even the OSS version. As this code base is what all other products, including enterprise stuff, will fork from at some

I do not see a contradiction in here to what I said. The difference to Fedora I mentioned lies in having the same base code as the retail product. I would hope this would stay the same in the future as I believe this is one of the strengths right now, that everything is "Code 10" and should stay that way until 11 and so on. It is great to hear that the plans are to extend the OSS release with additional features, that is what I expected and to start an effort off already in that direction I started SUPER. point

in time, we can't promise you to integrate anything you do into the core distribution.

I understand and I certainly do not expect packages to automatically end up in the retail box as the development process you need for a commercial product is very different from the hack and burn extensions a community based approach can have. I also do not expect us to actually start maintaining tons of base packages as the proper development cycle needs to be retained and I have kind of had it with maintaining thousands of base packages ;) .... I rather leave that up to professional SUSE coders. I do understand all that and it makes all sense. The difference to Fedora stands however since we are the precursor to the Enterprise Products and Fedora is a completely separate distro and code base. I do think that our model is stronger and will yield in huge future successes, since it streamlines effort and keeps code compatibility instead of splitting effort and creating compatibility hazzles.

snip

Our solution - so far: our goal - is to make packaging and

distributing

software easier, and to offer a place to announce and distribute the resulting packages to the world, as part of openSUSE (the project), though not necessarily of SUSE Linux (the core distribution).

What you are saying is: SUSE Linux OSS will hence contain additional packages done by the community, that won't be found in SUSE Linux Retail and vice versa, that is what my understanding was so far. And that is why I have started with SUPER to start with those additional "features" and "packages" by still being fully compatible with the SUSE Linux OSS and Retail releases. SLES will then fork from that as a stable and long term patched branch, but is still compatible in the "Code 10" model I have read about. All good! I love this model. Clear and effective and by keeping things on "Code 10" certifications for external vendors will be easier and internal and community development will be streamlined. Innovation can happen in the OSS release and in add on projects like SUPER and others to come. I think this is what will make us rock the windows boat! Streamlined and effective Innovation. Channelized Open Source effort instead of forking and splitting at every little occasion is the key to success and the "Code 10" philosophy is totally in line with that. Please do correct me if I am wrong as I do tend to misinterpret statements sometimes ......

To get back to the original topic: yes, there are legal questions. Yes, they are being discussed. No, I won't make any statements about them on this list (and would like to recommend others posting from the respective company account not to do so either). And personally I, too, would be happier if everybody would just use OGG. Oh, well.

I am looking forward to any future statements regarding this as I find the desktop currently highly crippled without decent media support. Regardless of ideological and geek arguments like ogg is better than mp3, the commercial reality is that Windows plays all that by installing commercial of shareware players and if we don't, than why would anyone switch to our distro? After all in our official announcement we said we would become the most usable and user friendly distro. To be that there is no choice and we must find a legal way to integrate patented technology at least in our commercial releases. And be assured that I will in pure Open Source spirit do something about the current situation in my own way as I cannot stand having to reboot into another distro just to be able to play DVD's or my music collection ....... really not fun ...since I do want to run Code 10 fulltime ...... Anyhow ... Guten Nachmittag to Germany ... I will go to sleep now. The southern hemisphere is switching off. :D Regards, Andreas openSUSE is SUPER: To help in the SUSE Performance Enhanced Release project visit http://www.opensuse.org/index.php/SUPER

Andreas Girardet schrieb:

[snip]

I am looking forward to any future statements regarding this as I find the desktop currently highly crippled without decent media support. Regardless of ideological and geek arguments like ogg is better than mp3, the commercial reality is that Windows plays all that by installing commercial of shareware players and if we don't, than why would anyone switch to our distro? After all in our official announcement we said we would become the most usable and user friendly distro. To be that there is no choice and we must find a legal way to integrate patented technology at least in our commercial releases.

Sonja, I do agree with that. I switched (private) from WinXP to SUSE v9.3 a few month ago. I didn't know anything to mutch about linux. so I started with a dualboot system, and a few days later I deleted my windows. but it was a real surprise to me as I wanted to play my songs and a DVD - it wouldn't work. and more: on the hompage from Novell I could read that they don't know any legal site where I could donload the stuff i needed. 'why that ?' I asked myself. playing MP3 and watching DVD isn't any illegal thing I thouth. and becuase I didn't know anything about linux, I needed about 4 or 5 days and 3 new setups to get a system that plays the songs and let me watch the films. and that with a system where I have paid for. btw: the same price as for the upgrade to winXP pro as I've bought my PC. I'm not new to the business of PCs. so I knew that it is nothing illegal to do all that multimedia-stuff. but when someone, who is still "only a PC-user" who has learned that he just need to make a click somewhere and the right player will open get an information from the vendor of his new OS that is based on OSS, that the things he likes to do are illegal, he will be back to his windows as fast as it could. and he will never give the new OS a new chanche in the near future. on the other hand I understand the situation from Novell. but thats something that could be clared. if not for the openSUSE-side then for the boxed version where costumers pay for it: get the right license and put it into the box ! thats the only way I think. why letting Microsoft with there mediaplayer going a better way then yourself ? even when there player only plays MP3 from out of the box (v9), and only the version10 from it can rip MP3 out of the box, and play DVD when a second decoder is installed ( btw: thats mostly because modern PCs that are to buy have a DVD-ROM with the needed software; but for the user it looks like the MS player could play it by itself) - the way Microsoft is putting there stuff to the costumer is the way the user need it: turn PC on, put the files in, and play. and by the way this topic is on the list here already: why don't talk about it on the list ? you can't open a project to the comunity ( or better. try to create your owen couminity !) and when topics needed a discussion take it out of the list. I totaly agree with you when it come to make decisions it is on your side - but the way how to came to it should be something where the people who speend there time into the project needed to be heared. thanks for your audience, best regards, JBscout PS: sorry houghi for putting my post to the end ...;)

Christoph Thiel schrieb:

Agreed, but as Sonja already pointed out, this topic is much more complex than it seems. However, I wouldn't talk about this without talking to my lawyer first ;)

ok, you'r right. sometimes easy things could be real complex. I know about it, because we sell software, that - sometimes - uses components from third partys. and depend on the actaul software it needs sometimes more, sometimes less negotiations with the owner of the component.

[...]

When it comes to legal / licensing issues, it's simply not that easy to talk about it in the public if you aren't really into that topic and don't want to risk your job ;)

Regards Christoph

;) I see & understand. then I will no longer be boring you or Sonja oder any other with that topic. btw: I'm in my second test case for beta3, and _anything_ looks goog right know. as far as i can see. but - there are a lot of more tests on my plan, so I will get back to that too ;) :) best regards, JBscout

JBScout schrieb:

Andreas Girardet schrieb:

... but it was a real surprise to me as I wanted to play my songs and a DVD - it wouldn't work. and more: on the hompage from Novell I could read that they don't know any legal site where I could donload the stuff i needed. 'why that ?' I asked myself. playing MP3 and watching DVD isn't any illegal thing I thouth. and becuase I didn't know anything about linux, I needed about 4 or 5 days and 3 new setups to get a system that plays the songs and let me watch the films. and that with a system where I have paid for. btw: the same price as for the upgrade to winXP pro as I've bought my PC.

I'm not new to the business of PCs. so I knew that it is nothing illegal to do all that multimedia-stuff. but when someone, who is still "only a PC-user" who has learned that he just need to make a click somewhere and the right player will open get an information from the vendor of his new OS that is based on OSS, that the things he likes to do are illegal, he will be back to his windows as fast as it could. and he will never give the new OS a new chanche in the near future.

on the other hand I understand the situation from Novell. but thats something that could be clared. if not for the openSUSE-side then for the boxed version where costumers pay for it: get the right license and put it into the box ! thats the only way I think. why letting Microsoft with there mediaplayer going a better way then yourself ? even when there player only plays MP3 from out of the box (v9), and only the version10 from it can rip MP3 out of the box, and play DVD when a second decoder is installed ( btw: thats mostly because modern PCs that are to buy have a DVD-ROM with the needed software; but for the user it looks like the MS player could play it by itself) - the way Microsoft is putting there stuff to the costumer is the way the user need it: turn PC on, put the files in, and play.

I read the other replies to this and do only want to contribute by giving a short explanation about the legal implications. MP3 as well als CSS (Content Scrambling System for encrypting commercial films on DVD) are copyrighted and are not open source. If you want to play a song or video that was made using one of these systems, you must have a decoder (I imagine you know that). This decoder must be licensed by the owner of the encoding system. For MP3 nice guys and maybe girls found a way around an developed LAME. But there is no legal workaround for CSS. With MS-Windoze you can use WinDVD, PowerDVD etc, which all include a licensed version of CSS. Once there was also a company trying to develop an equivalent for Linux, called LinDVD, but that project never reached it's goal. I don't know of any other attempt to legally find a way to incorporate CSS into a linux solution. I hope this may help to understand the problem a little bit more. Just a thougt: Nero (formely Ahead) has shortly issued it's Burning ROM CD/DVD burner for Linux. May be someone with contact to Nero may give them the idea to also develop their DVD solution for Linux, which for Windoze includes a licensed CSS codec ;-) Just my 0,02 EUR Detlef

On Thursday 25 August 2005 21:27, Anders Johansson wrote:

That was the same company that made WinDVD, and it very much reached its goal. It is included in the TurboLinux distribution today.

My mistake. Turbonux bundles PowerDVD for Linux. But Intervideo has LinDVD available, though not for sale to end users directly. I can swear I read somewhere that it was included in a distro

On Thursday 25 August 2005 22:38, Andreas Girardet wrote:

Including software must also mean that it has been compiled and tested on SUSE?

Tested certainly, but compiled? I have no clue which distro realplayer was compiled on, or Acrobat Reader. As long as it works as advertised, it's not that important where it was compiled, although it would of course be nice if Adobe and Real used SUSE :)

On Friday 26 August 2005 00:11, Andreas Girardet wrote:

I have sent an email off to my first point of contact at SUSE. Let's see if I can get something moving.

Since you never reply to my off-list email I'm not sure if you even get them. Did you read the discussion thread I pointed out? There is nothing about this that hasn't already been discussed at length. The thing that remains to be done is to show that the added functionality is worth the resulting increase in price to customers. Linspire users pay 40 dollars for the player, according to their web site. Is that a price people are willing to pay? I wonder

On Friday 26 August 2005 01:51, Andreas Girardet wrote:

...

snip email from

The attached file had the following undeliverable recipient(s): andjoh@rydsbo.net

Transcript of session follows: Command: rydsbo.net Response: 450 MX lookup failure (rydsbo.net)

Hm, weird, I have had no problems from anywhere else. Including EMEA

I tried to tell you that offlist, but unless you fix your MX record I cannot send you offlist email

Feel free to send to ajohansson@novell.com instead (or log on to groupwise messenger some time). I will try to find out what's wrong with the provo name server

According to their website it is 9.95 for the gold service which in itself costs 49.95/yr, which is half of what I pay for SUSE when I go into a shop here in NZ. So what is your argument again? 40 dollars only if someone does not have an account ...... I would be happy to pay 50 per annum for updates and additionally 10 dollars for a dvd player. I think I am not the only one, obviously otherwise Linspire would not do it and otherwise we would not charge more than that for our NLD and SLES products and our boxed set in an NZ shop.

Well, the price for SLES and NLD is for the support and security patch services. The product itself can be downloaded at no charge. I don't know how much it would cost to license it. Linspire could be using it as a loss leader to get people to subscribe to their service. I also have no clue how far it's taken them. The mere fact that they're doing it doesn't mean it's working. But I'd like to be clear about one thing here, I am in favour of including a licensed player in the box, as long as the price is right. I have been saying that in public for a long time. All I'm saying is that we need to find out how much it would cost, and show that people are willing to pay that extra price. I think voices from customers would speak loudest, in this case.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Andreas Girardet wrote: ...

I would think that currently we are forcing the user to use illegal sources for such software. SUSE Linux 10.0 retail would be so much more usable if we would not need to do that and could just play DVD's and mp3's and other formats out of the box. We seem to not have a problem doing that with other commercial software, why not with that one.

Because other software like Adobe don't involve patent issues (because they own them). I'm curious about Helix, though. I don't want to push this into an endless thread but.. it might be even more complicated. So, you want 100% "legal" MP3 and DVD players for SUSE Linux. Would we want a closed source application ? I don't think so. I'm not a GPL freak but... what we really want is an OpenSource implementation. We already have those. The point is just that they don't pay for the right to use others' patents. And even then, it's not really clear whether they are breaking patents and licenses or not. Software patents are mostly a weapon to threaten others anyway (or a cash machine in some cases, e.g. Kodak vs Sun). But it also involves two things: 1) software patentability differs from one country to another: luckily, Europe is safe from those, at least at the moment (don't mind what the European Patent Office is saying, they're illegal and currently cannot be enforced) 2) depending on the OpenSource license you're using, patents are being taken into account or not (GPL does not specifiy anything about software patents, although some BSD-like do (e.g. Apache Software License 2)) The SUSE Linux retail price is already considered to be quite high in the community (yes, I know, there are books etc..., I bought every single release since 5.0, I don't mind, but it's what I hear a lot when talking to people) and adding an extra 40 USD/EUR for that.. I don't know.. not sure it's the best option. But yet, what about the online version ? Buying the boxed set has been a barrier for quite a lot of people to use SUSE Linux, whereas other distributions are available for immediate download (e.g. Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora). IMHO, that part of Novell's move to open up SUSE Linux will very likely be the most important in terms of SUSE Linux' acceptance and spread amongst users. What you are saying is: "well, if they want multimedia support out-of-the-box, they should buy the boxed set" ... ? What's the legal situation in terms of copyright and patents with the current option of providing those "multimedia packs" ? Or would you want to have Novell pay codec licensing fees to, amongst others... Microsoft (to include WMA codecs), and Novell in turn make the users pay for it ? I'm not sure I'd like to pay Microsoft a few bucks when I buy my SUSE Linux set ;) cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFDDlP1r3NMWliFcXcRAi1xAJ4/6w3eM/zVu2CfS4fsGc9vKrPf9wCgotgy zpZxAMEco+zFUErsWTdKX1k= =XN3m -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Only geeks will use the OSS version if there is no option to play media files legally by buying some sort of player from us or from an officially tested and certified. Only geeks who know how to compile and satisfy dozens of dependencies or are clever enough to find binaries that will run on the particular release.

This is not a problem for the community that is tinkering with SUSE 10 and the openSUSE project. I know I can go off and find my own copies of the win32codecs, and compile and install MPlayer... I can go off and find the source for MP3 support and get it working, but... the end user... the guy who wants to leave Windows in the dust is really struggling with this - even with the situation as it is now (YOU updates and installing/using apt4suse). I spend a LOT of time helping people set this up on their systems. They go off, buy the box set from the local vendor, and install it themselves (a tribute to how easy it is to install SUSE these days) but they stall out when they want to play MP3s or their DVDs. That's when I get the desperate email or phone call... "My husband/wife is all upset because he/she can't play music or videos anymore, what do I do???? I know it works for you, because I've seen it on your computer last week!" There are a lot of people that buy the commercial release of SUSE. Giving them full multimedia support out of the box - with the appropriate licenses of course - will actually make SUSE a stronger product that Windows... or the other Linux distros. The openSUSE community has to remember that they are (in my experience) only a small percentage of the userbase. Of all the people I know who are currently using SUSE either as a primary OS, or at least as a dual boot OS, only 2... yes 2 (other than myself) have the comfort level and knowledge to deal with the lack of multimedia support. The rest... they are learning, but... they are relying on me or the other two people to coach them through setting it up. This is their number one complaint about SUSE Linux... solving this - even if it means a few additional Euros on the box price is well worth it... both to Novell and to the end user. Just my thoughts... C.

Andreas Girardet wrote:

And that is what we should do and what I suggest .. pay the fee and include the software in the Retail product or as an additional download which can be paid for seperately ...... Including software must also mean that it has been compiled and tested on SUSE?

If I can talk to anyone in corporate about that, then I will.

If you read the linspire site, then the cost for existing customers (which pay 49 per annum) is 9.95. Since I already spend more than double on my SUSE Pro 9.3 and thinking that we have 2 releases per year that is 4 times as much, would you not expect that cost to be already included?

Andreas

I think we are on to a groundbreaking idea here. If users could download the dvdplayer and mp3 codecs for a fixed price I can't see how this could fail to become the most usable distro out there. Trying to play either dvds og mp3 would give you a message telling you that you can download from the suse site for x amount of €. I belive Michael Robertson CEO of Linsipre said in LFX magazine no. 68 that they pay 3.5$ for each licence for the DVD MPEG playback. So if They are charging 9.95$ they are good profit. I my opinion this is a no brainer! Come on give it to us! Kenneth Aar

http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html You could legally distribute the MP3 codecs with the player for $50,000 and up. Alternatively, pay $15,000 per year up front and you can distribute at 75¢ per unit. Similar scheme for DVD. This is how Linspire does it. Linspire isn't the most usable distro out there because of having this ability either. I wouldn't suggest it. RP houghi wrote:

On Fri, Aug 26, 2005 at 12:28:57PM +0200, Kenneth Aar wrote:

...

I think we are on to a groundbreaking idea here. If users could download the dvdplayer and mp3 codecs for a fixed price I can't see how this could fail to become the most usable distro out there. Trying to play either dvds og mp3 would give you a message telling you that you can download from the suse site for x amount of ?. I belive Michael Robertson CEO of Linsipre said in LFX magazine no. 68 that they pay 3.5$ for each licence for the DVD MPEG playback. So if They are charging 9.95$ they are good profit.

I wonder if there is a minimum amount to be paid, otherwise I could just start selling these at say 7.50USD or 6EUR, make money and do something to the comunity. Wether or not I will prosecute people who copy the software is a complete other matter. I probably will point my finger, say you are a naught boy and be very, very upset.

I would just put the bin files in rpm, deb and tgz files and do it for all, not just SUSE. As it would be legal, Novell could point to my site.

Mmm. Where could I get info about this?

houghi

Renegade Penguin wrote:

http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html

You could legally distribute the MP3 codecs with the player for $50,000 and up.

and up? the amount seems hudge, but not in respect of the number of customers. Do you only imagine the price of _the box_ (nices green or blue one, cd folding...). the mp3 licence is nearly nothing in comparison. (if the value is right) jdd -- pour m'écrire, aller sur: http://www.dodin.net http://valerie.dodin.net http://arvamip.free.fr

Winston Graeme schrieb: [...]

I would see it as quite enoying to say the least if I as a new Linux user finally start up my system ... all great open-source software ... & all eager I throw in a DVD & start up the player and I'm told that I'll have to pay in order to watch my DVD....so much for open-source.

Couldn't there be a link in a Player which points to site which is hosted in a country where codecs can legally be downloaded ?

Or as said above ... Novell pays money .. & the user has no hassle .. or is this against policy ?

Sorry but I really don't get it why this is all so difficult when Novell is a huge global company.

when the discussion starts here on the list, I've had agreed totaly with you. I have written about my surprise after paing for the boxed 9.3-pro-version (btw - my first steps with linux at all !) and my try to play my owen MP3, and my owen DVD. and my surprise at the homepage where I was told to get more info about it as it says that Novell doesn't know any legal way to get a player for my needs. but the last 1 1/2 days I have read a lot of the needed stuff when it came to the points of copyright, license and patents, and how it can be all into a legal way ( I can only speak about the situation in germany and a little about it in the EU, not for the hole world ;) ) 1. linking to a site where illegal content will be offert is against german law. it doesn#t matter if the link is on a website, as hyperlink in software or printed out in manuals or books. 2. offering codecs for downloading is not per se illegal - it depends on the technic the codec was made / how the structure of the data for reading / writing was get by the author of the software. 3. it depends on the owner of a format // patent // license if a decoder and / or encoder that is not published by the owner is legal or illegal. 4. if a decoder or encoder is just for reading oder writting "pure data" and it is not used to have a copyprotection into that data (MP3) it is very difficult to be on a legal way when a author programs such a decoder or encoder. there are too many "if"s, "when"s and "else"s to make things clear on a short basis - you even could fill books with it ! 5. when there is a technic used to protect "pure data" againt copying (CSS with DVSs for example) it is against german law to produce a software that reads the "pure data" by cracking that copyprotection, and it is against the law to make any link to sites that offer those software. 6. even when a site like openSUSE.org is not hosted in germany and the site itself is out of business of german law, but it is a german business or has a german office witch offers here business for the coperation in germany it has to delete all links to sites that offers that software - so there will be never a legal way to put links into the wiki or any other site thats owned ny Novell. conclusion: there is only one legal way for Novell and the boxed version of SUSE Linux: they have to get the arcording license, pay the feed for it, and a) put that feed up on the prise of the box or b) make a better box with a big sighn on it that all legal licenses are included without any higher price. for the OSS-version of openSUSE I can't see a way that is realistic. first: the needed software should be also OSS because all in that version will be. how many will that cost to get the license, and how realistic will it be that wthis will be done ? second. it could be closed software. thats againt OSS, but will get a better price when they have to pay the licence. when they give out that piece of software for free they have a little more "freedom" with the comunity, but are still against OSS. when they sale that piece of software - no freedom, still against OSS, and not many of the comunity will by that. btw: even when you can get the sourcecode of the tools for scampling CSS "all over the net" (when you look for it, of cource) there will be never a day where the DVDforum, holder of the patents and copyrights of CSS, will allow to make a OSS-version of those software. thats a dream, not more. that could only be done with closed software. but as holder of the rights of those software you can do with what you like - even make it free for all. the onyl thing: you have to pay for it as holder of the rights. so, to came to an end here: I understand that Novell has to make some secision that are not easy, and they have to make good calculations, and asking themself where they want to go (ups, that was from microsoft I think ...). but I'm wondering why the hell they are thinking now, and didn't done that 2 oder 3 years ago. thanks for audience, with regards JBScout

houghi schrieb:

On Sat, Aug 27, 2005 at 03:00:31AM +0200, JBScout wrote: <snip>

...

for the OSS-version of openSUSE I can't see a way that is realistic. first: the needed software should be also OSS because all in that version will be.

<snip>

I think you are wrong here. It is SUSE that is open, not the software packages in itself. Wth SUSE I mean Yast and all the tools that come with it. If you do your first update, you can download the NVidea drivers and the Microsoft fonts. Neither or OSS.

sorry, but I think you are wrong, too .... sorry ;) [maybe we are both, but thats why we are on that list to talk about it ;)] - nvidia-driver: the interface between OS and driver is open source, while the driver itself is closed source. when you look into the source of the script that install the driver via yast you can see that it downloads the driver direct fron nividia - not the "last" one but one thats a little bit older and - mybe - more stable than the last one. the stepts that the script takes to install is the same as you would try it yourself - only different is that you can't see what it does. when you try a version directly loaded from nvidia it will looks for a compatble interface to the running kernel, and if it down't find it, it will compile one - from the source of the the interface that is included in the downloaded file. so, at all, the driver is a more "hybrid" - a little bit open source, and the rest closed source. - MS core fonts: near the same as above: the script fetches some file from sourceforge.net and istall that fonts. it includes some of the core font files that are the same then the one microsoft offers for downloading from there site - but they aren't loaded directly from MS. the the files are open scource, while the content they have are closed source ( hmm, I don't know if that term matches here, because "open source" for fonts .... I don't know. but they are free of charge as they are at the MS-site).

If there would be a closed source to be installed, so be it. (as long as it is legal).

ok - that deepends on the look of view of every user himself. there are out a lot of people who *never* would mix a OSS-system with closed software, and some say "uh - why not". how mutch software has to be OSS, and how mutch software could be closed software, so the hole system is still OSS ? I don't know.

I could see a site where you would have to buy the program for download. That way openSUSE could link to there and instalation could be done somehow from within YAST, perhaps.

same as obove. I think it depends on the look of view of individuals. but I think that not mutch of users of a OSS-system would buy a software ( esp. when that is closed software). I may be wrong here too, but at least thats what you could read when you read in some forums about OSS etc.

houghi

just my two cents, JBscout PS: yes, I would pay for the software - even when it's closed. but I will have to think about it if buy the boxed version again and that will came out without the needed tools. then it would be better they put 5 Euros on top of the price I have to pay already for the box, and I'm happy with it. but not without it.

houghi schrieb:

[...]

So you agree that SUSE has non-OSS in it. At least indirectly. This could be done with mp3 and dvd stuff as well. <snip>

ok, at that point of view I agree - even I think a driver is a little other thing than "normal" software like a codec for MP3 or a player that can hanlde DVD+CSS.

...

( hmm, I don't know if that term matches here, because "open source" for fonts .... I don't know. but they are free of charge as they are at the MS-site).

There is a difference betwee open source and free software. We are talking free as in speech, not free as in beer.

I know that that are two views of two different things. but as I wrote it, I was thing of the source of a font - has it a source ? I don't know, so I asked for the "open source" for fonts myself. the source for the "core MS fonts" is open source - you can get it at source forge. the question is if the fonts that are included into it are open source - and because I don't know how the truetype-fonts will be made I can't say if there is a source at least.

...

...

If there would be a closed source to be installed, so be it. (as long as it is legal).

ok - that deepends on the look of view of every user himself. there are out a lot of people who *never* would mix a OSS-system with closed software, and some say "uh - why not". how mutch software has to be OSS, and how mutch software could be closed software, so the hole system is still OSS ? I don't know.

That is their good right. You will never be forced to install the software.

if you like to hear MP3 and watch DVD+CSS and you want to be on the legal side of life - you have to install it.

...

same as obove. I think it depends on the look of view of individuals. but I think that not mutch of users of a OSS-system would buy a software

It is strange that you tell this on openSUSE, wich three goals are working to make SUSE better. SUSE is buyable in boxed sets.

of cource it is ! and I like that, as I think I would get the next version also as a boxed version. but if you read in some forums where is a discussion about OSS, and the way distros are made and buyable at shops, you will see that many people didn't understand that there could be a differend between "for free" and "without charge". there are many people who think that selling software that deppends on OSS is a crue. so why should these people buy those software ? they wouldn't.

<snip>

...

PS: yes, I would pay for the software - even when it's closed. but I will have to think about it if buy the boxed version again and that will came out without the needed tools. then it would be better they put 5 Euros on top of the price I have to pay already for the box, and I'm happy with it. but not without it.

The ideal would be to have the closed source that you need to buy to get your stuff together seperated from the box, the website or even the OS itself. That way people who are not interested do not need to pay for it and people who want it can still pay for it.

that are not the only options - as I've written already. the Realplayer can play MP3, is closed software with influence of there OSS Helix, and free for all. real networks pays for the licence, but give it out without any charge. thats a possible way for Novell also I think. (OK, at that point it could be complex already again - Real networks makes money with there stuff at real.com, like the shop, the games etc etc, so they need a way to get the user on there site - with a free player].

In an ideal world all source would be open and it is nice to talk about that. Unfortunatly this will not happen and we need to deal with that. Doing something illegal is not an option for openSUSE, so we are stuck with either no DVD watching, or paying up in some way or another.

I do totaly agree with that !

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

;) Ok, then I will while paying for it I think ;) but there will be another reason why I would get the boxed version - this is another way to support openSUSE :) regards, JBScout PS: sorry for all who have to read my english - not the best one I think :( ;)

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JBScout [Thomas Lodewick] wrote:
> houghi schrieb:
...
>>> ( hmm, I don't know if that term matches here, because "open source" for
>>> fonts .... I don't know. but they are free of charge as they are at the
>>> MS-site).
>> There is a difference betwee open source and free software. We are talking
>> free as in speech, not free as in beer.
> I know that that are two views of two different things. but as I wrote it,
> I was thing of the source of a font - has it a source ? I don't know, so I
> asked for the "open source" for fonts myself.

Fonts have sources, indeed.
Example: http://dejavu.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
You can also download the "sources" in form of FontForge SFD files.
But there are other tools to directly edit .ttf files as well.

> the source for the "core MS fonts" is open source - you can get it at
> source forge. the question is if the fonts that are included into it are
> open source - and because I don't know how the truetype-fonts will
> be made I can't say if there is a source at least.

Thomas, please don't mess up terms like "open source", "free" (libre) or "freely available".
MS core fonts are definately *not* open source.
You have to accept a license agreement from Microsoft whereas the files are freely distributable in
an unaltered form:
http://web.archive.org/web/20020227054122/www.microsoft.com/typography/fontpack/eula.htm
Read part 1 and 2.. is that open source ? (hint: "unaltered form") ;)

Now don't ask me why their SF project page states "GPL" as the license. That's definately wrong.

>>>> If there would be a closed source to be installed, so be it. (as long as
>>>> it is legal).
Depends. It really depends on what it is.
Using/shipping/including closed source software gives a very long trail of issues, e.g.:
- - don't use closed source key components (e.g. libraries) others depend on
- - different limitations apply to their redistribution, as well for Novell/SUSE as for individuals
(e.g. putting ISOs on the web, P2P, ...)
- - non-OpenSource licenses (like GPL, LGPL, BSD, ASL, MPL, EPL, MIT-X, etc...) must be handled with
great care, because they always have their own text and must be read thouroughly to make sure you're
not breaking its rules

Don't underestimate the implications the use and inclusion of closed source software has.

Now, that being said, I'm not a GPL zealot either and in certain cases, closed source software might
be ok. If that's the only option for having an easy to install&use, fully working DVD player on
Linux, then be it.

>>> ok - that deepends on the look of view of every user himself. there are out
>>> a lot of people who *never* would mix a OSS-system with closed software,
>>> and some say "uh - why not". how mutch software has to be OSS, and how
>>> mutch software could be closed software, so the hole system is still OSS ?
>>> I don't know.
>> That is their good right. You will never be forced to install the
>> software.
> if you like to hear MP3 and watch DVD+CSS and you want to be
> on the legal side of life - you have to install it.

Again, don't confuse MP3 and DVD/CSS. MP3 can be redistributed as long as it's redistributed freely
(there was a prior post about that in this thread).

- --
  -o) Pascal Bleser     http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/
  /\\        
 _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane.
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Saturday 27 Aug 2005 18:31 samaye JBScout [Thomas Lodewick] alekhiit:

if you like to hear MP3 and watch DVD+CSS and you want to be on the legal side of life - you have to install it.

I thought installing DVDCSS was not exactly legal. I'm not sure. Please clarify. Novell won't supply mp3 and dvdcss support with SuSE to be "squeaky clean". But I have to install DVDCSS to be on legal side of life? How? -- Shriramana Sharma Sym454 2005-08-35 http://samvit.org Penguin #395953 /

On Sunday 04 September 2005 03:04, mike wrote:

If it doesn't comply with the laws, then Novell is libel.

:) I think you mean "liable". http://dictionary.reference.com/ -- ====================================================== Glenn Holmer (Linux registered user #16682) ====================================================== "Greater coherence cannot be achieved. Not even the Netherlanders have managed this." -Anton Webern ======================================================

Because different countries have different laws on this subject. If Novell sells the product, it must comply with the laws where it is sold. It's easier for them to use the lowest common denominator. If it doesn't comply with the laws, then Novell is libel. If, after you make the purchase, you add the necessary files, then you and you alone are libel.

I understand that ssh is illegal in some countries. Does that mean that Novell should end all support for ssh? Eddie

SNIP UNNECESSARILY LONG POSTS!! We don't want the entire freaking thread in EVERY single message! 200+ lines are insane. Just because you CAN bottom post doesn't mean that you even have a clue when it comes to posting. Winston Graeme wrote:

--- JBScout wrote:

...

Winston Graeme schrieb:

[...]

...

I would see it as quite enoying to say the least if

I

...

as a new Linux user finally start up my system ...

all

...

great open-source software ... & all eager I throw

in

...

a DVD & start up the player and I'm told that I'll have to pay in order to watch my DVD....so much for open-source.

Couldn't there be a link in a Player which points

to

...

site which is hosted in a country where codecs can legally be downloaded ?

Or as said above ... Novell pays money .. & the

user

...

has no hassle .. or is this against policy ?

Sorry but I really don't get it why this is all so difficult when Novell is a huge global company.

when the discussion starts here on the list, I've had agreed totaly with you. I have written about my surprise after paing for the boxed 9.3-pro-version (btw - my first steps with linux at all !) and my try to play my owen MP3, and my owen DVD. and my surprise at the homepage where I was told to get more info about it as it says that Novell doesn't know any legal way to get a player for my needs.

but the last 1 1/2 days I have read a lot of the needed stuff when it came to the points of copyright, license and patents, and how it can be all into a legal way ( I can only speak about the situation in germany and a little about it in the EU, not for the hole world ;) )

1. linking to a site where illegal content will be offert is against german law. it doesn#t matter if the link is on a website, as hyperlink in software or printed out in manuals or books.

2. offering codecs for downloading is not per se illegal - it depends on the technic the codec was made / how the structure of the data for reading / writing was get by the author of the software.

3. it depends on the owner of a format // patent // license if a decoder and / or encoder that is not published by the owner is legal or illegal.

4. if a decoder or encoder is just for reading oder writting "pure data" and it is not used to have a copyprotection into that data (MP3) it is very difficult to be on a legal way when a author programs such a decoder or encoder. there are too many "if"s, "when"s and "else"s to make things clear on a short basis - you even could fill books with it !

5. when there is a technic used to protect "pure data" againt copying (CSS with DVSs for example) it is against german law to produce a software that reads the "pure data" by cracking that copyprotection, and it is against the law to make any link to sites that offer those software.

6. even when a site like openSUSE.org is not hosted in germany and the site itself is out of business of german law, but it is a german business or has a german office witch offers here business for the coperation in germany it has to delete all links to sites that offers that software - so there will be never a legal way to put links into the wiki or any other site thats owned ny Novell.

conclusion: there is only one legal way for Novell and the boxed version of SUSE Linux: they have to get the arcording license, pay the feed for it, and a) put that feed up on the prise of the box or b) make a better box with a big sighn on it that all legal licenses are included without any higher price.

for the OSS-version of openSUSE I can't see a way that is realistic. first: the needed software should be also OSS because all in that version will be. how many will that cost to get the license, and how realistic will it be that wthis will be done ? second. it could be closed software. thats againt OSS, but will get a better price when they have to pay the licence. when they give out that piece of software for free they have a little more "freedom" with the comunity, but are still against OSS. when they sale that piece of software - no freedom, still against OSS, and not many of the comunity will by that.

btw: even when you can get the sourcecode of the tools for scampling CSS "all over the net" (when you look for it, of cource) there will be never a day where the DVDforum, holder of the patents and copyrights of CSS, will allow to make a OSS-version of those software. thats a dream, not more. that could only be done with closed software. but as holder of the rights of those software you can do with what you like - even make it free for all. the onyl thing: you have to pay for it as holder of the rights.

so, to came to an end here: I understand that Novell has to make some secision that are not easy, and they have to make good calculations, and asking themself where they want to go (ups, that was from microsoft I think ...). but I'm wondering why the hell they are thinking now, and didn't done that 2 oder 3 years ago.

thanks for audience, with regards JBScout

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" so, to came to an end here: I understand that Novell has to make some secision that are not easy, and they have to make good calculations, and asking themself where they want to go (ups, that was from microsoft I think ...). but I'm wondering why the hell they are thinking now, and didn't done that 2 oder 3 years ago."

-> Certainly agree with you & thanks for the copyright info ... Ill have to read it a few more times till I fully understand it :-)

But in my opinion no one or very few will complain if Novell-SuSE realease a Linux with closed-source codecs

.. they are allready doing this with Realplayer, Acrobat Reader, QCad, Opera, MainActor soon probably Nero I guess ..

all of them are closed source as far as I know & for each one one has to accept the terms they set out for the end-user to use the software ... adding codecs wouldjust be a few more propietry (?SPLN?) packages which would add very nedded !!functionality!! .

The downloaded version of course can't contain this but the user who has decided to try out a different operating system for his/her computer probably wont shy away from getting the full OS with manuals & all the extra closed-source packages which number will most likely increase with an increase in Linux support from software makers.

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SNIP UNNECESSARILY LONG POSTS!! We don't want the entire freaking thread in EVERY single message! 200+ lines are insane. Just because you CAN bottom post doesn't mean that you even have a clue when it comes to posting. And if you read all the way to the bottom - yeah, I left in their footers too to show how stupid this thread has become.

The adress should be : http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Patrick Shanahan skrev:

* Renegade Penguin [08-27-05 21:15]:

...

SNIP UNNECESSARILY LONG POSTS!! We don't want the entire freaking thread in EVERY single message!

200+ lines are insane. Just because you CAN bottom post doesn't mean that you even have a clue when it comes to posting.

And you make a fool of yourself top posting over an _entire_ quote of what you are bitching about, doing the same thing.

PEOPLE, please show some respect and courtesy to your fellow list members. http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.htm

On Sun, Aug 28, 2005 at 05:46:50AM -0700, Renegade Penguin wrote: <snip>

My point still stands, the posts were not being snipped. Quote relevant parts, and snip all of the rest. We all ought to have access to 21st century technology and have software that runs in threaded mode. If you have THAT much e-mail that you cannot run in a threaded mode - that you MUST read the entire message over and over and over - it must be a hard life.

Well, not everybody has access to the same technolagy. The standard here has been discussed and bottomposting is th best way to deal with posts Look it up. Also don't post in HTML. This is not a website. -- houghi http://www.opensuse.org/index.php/Making_a_DVD_from_CDs

Winston Graeme wrote:

Couldn't there be a link in a Player which points to site which is hosted in a country where codecs can legally be downloaded ?

I have already voluntered for this. If someone gives me the compiled sources I will host them legally form Norway... But Novel wants to be all clean in case of lawsuits, so maybe I will just make an all norwegian Super Suse with everything you need included all free of charge? This would sort of solve the problem I think . :-) No seriously, I wouldn't have the bandwidth :-( But a norwegian multimediapack for SUSE will be made no matter what! I'll post a webadress here on the list, when it's ready... Kenneth Aar

...

...

On Thu, Aug 25, 2005 at 10:31 am, in message , gdk@redhat.com wrote:

Just saw your email addy and wonder ..... are you the official RH spy ;) on this list? :D Andreas

Hi, On Wed, 24 Aug 2005, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:

On Wed, 24 Aug 2005, Andreas Girardet wrote:

...

Just saw your email addy and wonder ..... are you the official RH spy ;) on this list?

I'd be proud of that title, but it's probably more accurate to say that I'm the official Fedora spy. :)

Great! A brother in soul! Cheers -e -- Eberhard Moenkeberg (emoenke@gwdg.de, em@kki.org)

Hi, On Wed, 24 Aug 2005, Andreas Girardet wrote:

...

...

...

On Thu, Aug 25, 2005 at 11:27 am, in message , emoenke@gwdg.de wrote: On Wed, 24 Aug 2005, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote: On Wed, 24 Aug 2005, Andreas Girardet wrote:

...

...

...

Just saw your email addy and wonder ..... are you the official RH spy ;) on this list?

I'd be proud of that title, but it's probably more accurate to say that I'm the official Fedora spy. :)

Great! A brother in soul!

Sorry for getting hugely off topic, but I cannot resist making smart comments ..... I find it too funny to have spies on this list ;)

So probably you still have not realized the full spectrum of "openSUSE". Cheers -e -- Eberhard Moenkeberg (emoenke@gwdg.de, em@kki.org)

Eberhard Moenkeberg wrote:

...

...

...

I'd be proud of that title, but it's probably more accurate to say that I'm the official Fedora spy. :)

Great! A brother in soul!

So are all -bergs here Fedora spies? ;) -- Shriramana Sharma http://samvit.org (o- Penguin #395953 //\ running on ancient Indian wisdom V_/_ and modern computing efficiency

Christoph Thiel wrote:

...

So are all -bergs here Fedora spies? ;)

I don't think so - Eberhard has be an advocate for centuries ;)

Advocate of SUSE, or spying? :) -- (o- Penguin #395953 lives at http://samvit.org //\ running on ancient Indian wisdom V_/_ and modern computing efficiency

Hi, On Thu, 25 Aug 2005, Christoph Thiel wrote:

On Thu, 25 Aug 2005, Shriramana Sharma wrote:

...

Christoph Thiel wrote:

...

...

...

So are all -bergs here Fedora spies? ;)

I don't think so - Eberhard has be an advocate for centuries ;)

Advocate of SUSE, or spying? :)

SUSE, of course! (Or am I mixing something up, Eberhard? ;))

I am promoting SUSE for more than 10 years now. Maybe more than 11. Cheers -e -- Eberhard Moenkeberg (emoenke@gwdg.de, em@kki.org)

Hi, On Thu, 25 Aug 2005, houghi wrote:

On Thu, Aug 25, 2005 at 01:54:39PM +0200, Eberhard Moenkeberg wrote:

...

I am promoting SUSE for more than 10 years now. Maybe more than 11. i That is two or three years for all you who still cound in hex. ;-)

Binary? Cheers -e -- Eberhard Moenkeberg (emoenke@gwdg.de, em@kki.org)

Hi, On Thu, 25 Aug 2005, mike wrote:

On Thursday 25 August 2005 13:54, Eberhard Moenkeberg wrote:

...

...

SUSE, of course! (Or am I mixing something up, Eberhard? ;))

I am promoting SUSE for more than 10 years now. Maybe more than 11.

I had always wondered about who was responsible for the gwdg site. It's one of the best around. I'd like to publicly say thanks for all your work Eberhard.

Nice to hear, thanks back. Cheers -e -- Eberhard Moenkeberg (emoenke@gwdg.de, em@kki.org)

Hi, On Thu, 25 Aug 2005, Shriramana Sharma wrote:

mike wrote:

...

I had always wondered about who was responsible for the gwdg site. It's one of the best around. I'd like to publicly say thanks for all your work Eberhard.

Oh, Eberhard made that site! Yes, thanks Eberhard (though I've still not used it)! :)

If you have fetched the Beta3 i386 ISOs today, and if you have done it via http://ftp.opensuse.org/, you HAVE used ftp.gwdg.de. ;-)) We did a wonderful trick today (still working): Christoph has done a http redirection at ftp.opensuse.org so that each request for any beta3 i386 iso file gets redirected to http://ftp.gwdg.de/. This way, the i386 iso files never expired in the buffer cache and could get delivered very very fast over the whole day... This way, ftp.gwdg.de was able to deliver up to 85 MByte/sec (max value, reached at 13:00h, again at 14:30 h and 17:00 h) while the real disk I/O was below 20 MByte/sec all the time and still is - with 813 FTP sessions, 1389 HTTP sessions and 95 RSYNC sessions currently. This "general redirection" at http://ftp.opensuse.org/ is still working, so please try it if you still need one of the beta3 i386 ISOs. This idea can be a good brick to build a new distribution scheme. Disk I/O is always a latent bottleneck at the big public servers, and distribution sizes have exploded in a manner that it would be an illusion to cover this bottleneck by increasing the buffer cache. ftp.gwdg.de has 12 GB RAM, resulting in > 10 GB buffer cache, but already SUSE-9.3 was > 16 GB, and 3 days before debian had released 3.01 for all supported platforms, summing in 60 GB if I remember right, and mandrake and FreeBSD had fresh activities too. So we need pools of servers which have the ressources to "nail" some GB of RAM for certain files, and then a dispatch mechanism which redirects the right requests to the right servers. Cheers -e -- Eberhard Moenkeberg (emoenke@gwdg.de, em@kki.org)

Hi, On Thu, 25 Aug 2005, jdd wrote:

Eberhard Moenkeberg wrote:

...

sessions, 1389 HTTP sessions and 95 RSYNC sessions currently.

are there anonymous rsync sessions?

Yes. rsync -av --exclude /SUSE*-ppc-* --exclude /SUSE*-x86_64-* \ --exclude /SUSE*delta* \ rsync://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/distribution/SL-10.0-OSS-beta3/iso/ \ localdir will fetch just the i386 ISOs plus MD5SUMS into your localdir. Cheers -e -- Eberhard Moenkeberg (emoenke@gwdg.de, em@kki.org)

On Thu, 25 Aug 2005, Eberhard Moenkeberg wrote:

...

...

I had always wondered about who was responsible for the gwdg site. It's one of the best around. I'd like to publicly say thanks for all your work Eberhard.

Oh, Eberhard made that site! Yes, thanks Eberhard (though I've still not used it)! :)

If you have fetched the Beta3 i386 ISOs today, and if you have done it via http://ftp.opensuse.org/, you HAVE used ftp.gwdg.de. ;-))

Correction: It's http://download.opensuse.org/ ... Regards Christoph

On Wed, Aug 24, 2005 at 05:17:01PM -0600, Andreas Girardet wrote:

Just saw your email addy and wonder ..... are you the official RH spy ;) on this list?

Do you really think that the concept of "spy" is applicable anywhere in the open source world? ;-) (And on publicly archived lists, for that matter.) Welcome, Greg, and thanks for your comments. Sonja -- Sonja Krause-Harder (skh@suse.de) Research & Development SUSE Linux Products GmbH