On Sun, Mar 12, 2006 at 04:23:36PM -0500, David Nusinow wrote:
On Sun, Mar 12, 2006 at 01:01:16PM -0800, Ted Walther wrote:Debian is very much affected by the FOSS world in general. The biggest example I can think of is the patent regulations that were used to attack the free mp3 encoding programs. Because of that patent threat, Debian is very careful about the kind of mp3 support it ships by default.That would be Ubuntu. Or perhaps you're thinking of Fedora. But it would not be Debian.
I disagree. lame, and other mp3 encoding programs were removed from main, contrib, and non-free several years ago. MP3 encoding just isn't supported by Debian. Perhaps you configured apt to bring in your mp3 encoding software from third-party repositories. Far more annoying than the limitations on mp3 are the limitations on video playback. Have you never noticed that many mpeg, wmv, and avi movies don't play out of the box on Debian? The codecs are tied up by patents, secret specs, and other roadblocks. Sure, you can download a tarball of binary dll's and exe's put out by Microsoft. You can put these non-free binary blobs in particular directories and suddenly be able to watch the videos you download. But this isn't free in a way that Debian can support, and my Aunt Tilly (not her real name) would never figure out how to do that. David, the teletubbies on IRC were egging you on to "bait" me. You gave in to them. I hope you develop better character, so you can make a decent opposition party when I am in office as DPL. I expect better of you. Ted --It's not true unless it makes you laugh, but you don't understand it until it makes you weep.
Eukleia: Ted Walther Address: 5690 Pioneer Ave, Burnaby, BC V5H2X6 (Canada) Contact: 604-430-4973
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