Glenn: >> In situations where there is no clear pointer, such as DVD playback, it >> might be most reasonable to just do nothing for now. > > Maybe. I wonder though if we couldn't come up with 'something' to > explain the situation to the user why they can't play their media that > is both useful and doesn't generate a 'negative experience' (a tall > order I know).
How about this? http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html I think that the DVD media issue is a great example of how non-free software can be bad. Richard Stallman would go so far as to claim it hurts society, and is even evil. Since free software is, of course, relatively popular in the 3rd world, denying such people the ability to use technology like DVD's seems to support Stallman's point, to a degree, I think. I am not sure I agree it is "evil", though I can understand how Stallman connects hurting society with evil. We could debate whether denying the poor the ability to access DVD's really hurts society, or whether the world's poor really would consider free software to begin with. But I think Richard's essay would help to educate people about the underlying issues about freedom and technology, and how you lose freedom when you buy into non-free technologies. In other words, the consumer who has purchases a stack of DVD's should be aware that by making this choice, they have given up some freedoms. The freedom, obviously, to access the data purchased on the platform of choice without fear of legal issues. Brian
