Eric Raymond Joins Freespire

Posted Sep 28, 2006 22:23 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Realy. You asked why they aren't embraced and I told you. It is not over technical reasons, but legal and political ones. I wasn't trying to get into a arguement, but obviously you want one and I am happy to oblige.

No, you can't. Unless you register as a legal, certified distributor. That's how it works, sorry.

No shit sherlock. That is why they are anti-social. Also along with becomming a 'legal, certifed distributor' you have to take a whole host of other restrictions on what you can and can not do as a software distributer.

You can do some CS in University, and then try to get a job with said proprietary software developer. If you really have some groundbreaking new idea it's a win-win situation right?

No it's a win-loose situation. You would end up working with companies to figure out better ways to remove controls out of the hands of end users and put them into the hands of people willing to pay you for the right. That's sucks for everybody but you and the company you'd work for.

Except for PPC Macintoshes. And under Solaris on SPARC. And that's about it. Commodity petrol also won't work in stealth-bombers.

Theora, Ogg Vorbis, Speex, and others work fine on Mips, x86, x86-64, Power, PowerPC, ARM, and all operating systems and platforms. Anything that can compile the codecs will run it. And I said 'generally'. Not absolutely x86-only. Good luck trying to get WMV working under PPC Linux.

Also there is no corilation between propriatory codecs vs non-x86 platforms AND automobile gasoline vs stealth bombers. That is just silly.

The key is: Free market. You are not forced to use proprietary code. If there is a large-enough market (and there apparently is), content will be released in "open" formats too. Give it a little time.

The Free market is a illusion, a fantasy when you add government controls and regulations like the DMCA into the mix along with all major hardware manufacturers and media markets working against their own users. If it wasn't for that DRM would be immaterial, as it would be hugely profitable for anybody and anyone to create software and hardware to defeat DRM scemes. But as it is we have laws against doing that so the Market is not "Free".

So "obnoxious" now means something that "makes it harder to break copyright law". Are car alarms or door locks obnoxious too? What about ssh passwords?

Ssh passwords are designed to protect your information. Door locks are designed to protect your life and your belongings. You the end user. Not designed to protect OpenBSD or Masterlock or whoever made the software or locks for you. DRM is not related, it's not a accurate coorilation and a very shallow way of looking at the situation.
DRM scemes are NOT DESIGNED TO STOP PIRACY. That's a bullshit excuse. A lie. A sham. A smoke screen.
If you look on how they are done and how they are implimented then you would VERY quickly realised that they are not designed to do anything of the sort. They are designed to remove control of your hardware and software and put the control into the hands of people willing to buy it from Intel, Microsoft or whoever. Chinese government over it's citizens. Hollywood over over your television screen. Pornographers over your internet connection. Anybody with the $$ to pay for the keys.

If you want to compare it to carlocks.. Then DRM would be a lock that Ford (or honda) would use to lock you out of your own car if you forget to pay them your monthly 'unlock' fee. Plus Ford would then sell keys to your doors to other people that may be interested in making money off of you. See? It doesn't make sense.

Any DRM sceme yet created has no way of stopping a pirate or ensuring that a copy of your media will not end up on P2P networks. It only takes one copy to make it on the internet and then it's free for everybody to pirate if they want to. That's why DRM is not designed to stop that. It's not designed to even realy limit that. It is designed to give controls over to large corporations and anybody else who is willing to pay for the controls.

Guess what, people use IE on Linux (with the help of WINE!). Mostly they are web developers who find it easier than having two computers or rebooting every time they want to test a design. IE is free; and MS doesn't mind. I don't think you need a Windows license to use IE. Hell, I hope I don't. That is JUST WHAT I SAID. I said that you can run IE on Linux.

And yes it is not legal. Ask Microsoft they will tell you specificly that you need a copy of Windows to legally run it.

Remember Linus' Goal: "World Domination. Fast."

Linux will never be as good as Windows at running propriatory software. The concept, the very idea of open source is a affront to many people who write applications for Windows. They will never support Linux in the same manner.
Linux systems will never accept the restrictions that you would have to place on them to get companies to comfortably accept licensing DRM scemes to them. It would require making modifying large portions of the operating system illegal which is not legal according to the GPL and numerious other Free software licenses. Linux will never have the same amount of compatability with games that Windows has. Games probably won't run as fast on Linux as they do on Windows.

Linux will never be as slick as OS X is.

The ONLY thing that Linux has over other operating systems is that it's low cost, that it's flexible, and that it's open with no restrictions on usage or platform. All of that is a direct result of the Freedom allowed to users and developers of Linux. That's it. It's not realy all that much more secure. It's not realy all that much more faster or better or more stable. And it's still much more difficult to run it then other systems.
If Linux was to surrender it's freedom then it realy has nothing. Nothing realy compelling or attractive about it. We all would be better off running OS X.

To put it another way; something more concrete, more obvious. A real world example. Think about this:
Why is it that Linspire and Ubuntu are both Debian-based, both have the same amount of software aviable to them, both use the same basic desktop, both have support forums and other things that are newbie freindly, both are backed by corporations that want to make money...
But why is it that most Linux users would be happy about running Ubuntu, but wouldn't touch Linspire with a ten foot pole??

Linspire supports DVD and MP3 playback out of the box. It can legally do quicktime and windows media formats. That it has support and easy install for all sorts of propriatory software and such. Everything you say is required for 'world domination'. Ubuntu can do none of this by default and hasn't been around for as long, but is still many more times more popular.

Posted Oct 1, 2006 14:24 UTC (Sun) by hingo (subscriber, #14792) [Link]

Really, who is this guy?

For all I know, DRM schemes deny the public of many legal rights AND encourage people to break copyright law. And Linus's goal certainly never was world domination.

Not that I want to be part of this discussion, I just wanted to make sure nobody else takes this tmk seriously.