The patent tax

The patent tax

After listening to Eric's talk at Penguicon (were you on the panel, too?), I finally understand where he's coming from on the proprietary codec issue. If we are facing a better-than-usual shot at winning the desktop, but don't stand a chance without MP3, DVD, Flash video, etc., codecs, then I understand Eric's desire for a Linux codec package.

Such a codec package would represent a loss of freedom, but the short-term losses might plausibly be balanced by long-term gains (i.e., having enough market share to kill hardware-level DRM dead).

I don't know if actually agree with this argument, but at least I can respect the thinking behind it. But then again, I'm always a bit leery of disagreeing with Stallman on these issues, because in the last 15 years, he's been right more often than I have. :-(