I'll tell you what this patent protection did for me. I had a nearly fully functioning SUSE 10.0 system. I never could get the nVidia driver to install and work for 3D video, although it worked fine in SUSE 9.2 Professional. I made the mistake of upgrading to openSUSE 10.2 and now I'm regretting it big time. Mplayer was uninstalled by the upgrade, and none of my multimedia apps work cause of file format patents, from what I can tell by the big warning about patents on a Novell web page. I never saw or heard a peep out of Novell about patents before this Microsoft "deal". I think Novell got shafted by Microsoft. Time will tell, especially if MS ends up acquiring Red Hat (heaven forbid the financial experts are wrong). Why in the heck did openSUSE 10.2 have to remove a perfectly functioning Mplayer and leave me with a broken Kaffeine (which worked great before) and broken Noatun and broken XMMS, etc. I can't play any video formats now or burn any CDs. This is really pitiful. I'm really disgusted with what this upgrade has done. And why so many file updating programs? There's Yast, Yum, Smart, openSUSE Update, Synaptic, and a few more I can't remember at the moment. How in the world is a Windows user ever gonna convert and deal with so many choices? The strangest thing of all is how the documentation compares Smart to Yast and Yum and shows how superior it is to both. Then why include Yast and Yum anymore? Just provide Smart package manager and be done with it. Package management in Linux leaves a lot to be desired, compared to Windows Add/Remove Program and Setup programs. Is Linux desktop ready for prime time? I wish, but unfortunately, that's not the present situation. Disgruntled openSUSE user Alexey Eremenko wrote:
I see nothing wrong in doing any such contracts with Microsoft.
I believe Novell's Advocates, Management and Lawyers are fully aware of the consequences, and I believe that if Novell agreed to do that, they have a reason. I believe Novell management knows company politics better than us, Community Linuxoids. Maybe they have better vision of the future.
As a *Community Member* I can tell you, that I support any such Novell move as long as it doesn't hurt openSUSE project.
Even through I do not understand that political spin fully, because lack of public data. So if you believe in Novell management, please stop this useless discussion. I am sure this move is benefical to Novell.
CALL TO ALL: -I call to all SUSE community members stay with Novell & backup their moves.
-Alexey Eremenko. 13.11.2006. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
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