In defense of Ubuntu

Posted Aug 21, 2008 1:17 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
In reply to: In defense of Ubuntu by Cato
Parent article: In defense of Ubuntu

When you click on patent encumbered codecs in Ubuntu, you are offered to install support for
those codecs from a repository within Ubuntu that doesn't have any patent licenses.

libdvdcss is what is provided by Medubuntu which is considered risky even in Europe (isle of
man legally) where Canonical is located. 

The restricted driver manager also recommends to install proprietary kernel drivers to provide
"full functionality". Those are certainly different approaches from what Red Hat has done and
that is atleast in part due to legal considerations.

In defense of Ubuntu

Posted Aug 21, 2008 21:05 UTC (Thu) by Cato (guest, #7643) [Link] (1 responses)

Can you point me to the part of Ubuntu that adds medibuntu to your sources.list automatically?
I'm not aware of this, and have always had to find the HOWTO and follow it.  The fact that
various HOWTOs for DVD playback exist, such as
http://www.ubuntu-unleashed.com/2008/04/howto-easily-setu..., indicates
this is still far from automatic.

Ubuntu/Canonical are trying to walk a fine line here - maintain a freely redistributable and
open-source distro, while also making it easy to use patent-encumbered codecs and libdvdcss.
Other distros solve this problem in other ways, of course - e.g. Linux Mint (an Ubuntu
derivative) simply bundles codecs, while Dell's version of Ubuntu includes a commercial and
fully licensed DVD player.

As for proprietary kernel drivers, I think Ubuntu is doing a good job here - it warns the user
they may run into bugs that can't be solved by the Kernel or Ubuntu teams because they are
binary only.  However, it still lets people get the full functionality from their drivers.
This is nothing to do with legal issues as far as I can see - more of a philosophical
difference.

Having said that, 2 out of 3 of my Ubuntu boxes use no proprietary drivers, because I prefer
to avoid them if at all possible - I'm typing this on a new PC built for Ubuntu that uses
Intel graphics and 3Com WiFi stick, which is open source only.

In defense of Ubuntu

Posted Aug 22, 2008 0:11 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

"Can you point me to the part of Ubuntu that adds medibuntu to your sources.list
automatically?"

There is none which is my point. The legal risk for Canonical in pointing to medubuntu is
similar to the one for Red Hat if it directs users to Livna repository. The difference however
is that Canonical can afford to point people to patent encumbered and proprietary codecs while
Red Hat can't and therefore the solutions offered are completely different.People who argue
that Fedora (and by extension Red Hat) should point to Livna repository are not considering
the legal issues that make it not worth taking the risk. 

The legality of proprietary kernel drivers is certainly a gray area too. So there is both
philosophical as well as legal issues involved in these cases. Keeping that in mind helps.