On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 8:30 PM, Benjamin Scott <dragonh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 5:00 PM, Jon 'maddog' Hall <mad...@li.org> wrote: > >>Not one Linux distro I've seen does a convincing job with consumer > >>media, an absolutely basic requirement, and something we ought to be > >>able to get right. > > > > Well, please ask the DVD people not to used royalty bearing patents in > > their codecs, and encryption practices ... > > ... > The problem with "consumer media" is mostly > political/legal/economic, not technical. There's a huge amount of > money being spent to ensure that a small number of large companies > continue to wield control of the field. They're willing to spend that > money because they are protecting an even huger amount of money. > Linux can provide code, but it can't provide legality. Nominally, the > solution is to change the law -- write your congressperson, that sort > of thing. But again, lots of money is being spent to keep things the > way they are. > > Mass public outcry is required, and getting that looks to be > difficult. > I believe it was this pod cast http://twit.tv/floss95 where I heard this paraphrased quote: "Under DRM laws in the US, not only is it illegal to play DVDs on Linux, but it is illegal to tell some one else how to do it." So, I can't speak to whether or not I've seen Ubuntu play DVDs very nicely if you install one magical package from the repo. And to be fair, I haven't tried recently, so I would also not know if this is something that can still be done, but I do believe there are some advantages, that may or may not be related to this subject, to using distros provided by organizations/companies based outside the US. If some one feels compelled to listen to that episode (and I encourage you all to do so), I would greatly appreciate if you would post the exact quote here. Fight the power!
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