Il giorno 21/feb/08, alle ore 18:35, Brian Nitz ha scritto: > Giacomo Tufano wrote: >> Il giorno 21/feb/08, alle ore 17:22, Brian Nitz ha scritto: >>> Rather than focusing on how difficult it is to run dodgey, >>> unlicensed >>> video codecs out of the box as compared to Ubuntu, I'd like to make >> You're right, but for me at home (and, probably, for many people in >> Europe) it is legal to download the "dodgey, unlicensed video codec" >> for Ubuntu. The repository warns me that this could not be legal in >> my >> country and this is all. I can legally use DVD, MPEG2 and whatever >> for >> Ubuntu (legally, in my country) and I cannot with Solaris. The key, >> IMHO, is to make sure it is an "user choice" to download and use >> "potentially illegal" codecs. >> > You bring up a good point on perception as this question comes up very > often (even from people who also work for U.S. companies). Maybe the > first step is education. What do you think about this: > > - For multimedia formats for which there is a completely legal and > free > option available on OpenSolaris (e.g. Ogg), have the appropriate > plug-ins pre-installed so it just works. > > - For multimedia formats for which there is a legal option available > which is not free and therefore must be installed by the end user, > register the mime type to bring up codeina or easy-codec-install > just as > Ubuntu does. That way, when the user clicks on the file type it > presents the option to install the codec. > > - For multimedia formats for which neither free nor legal options are > available on OpenSolaris, bring up an informative dialog: > > The file you've selected is encoded in a multimedia format which > requires a licensed codec in some locales. It appears that licensed > codecs for this format do not exist for OpenSolaris. Please contact > vendor (Y) and ask them to port their codec to OpenSolaris and/or > provide a way to legally play your content on your platform of choice. > If you find a licensed codec which is not integrated, please inform > the > OpenSolaris community at [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you are unable > to > find a licensed codec and you've researched the relevant laws of your > locale, you may be able to find an unsupported content player on > GOOGLE > and use it at your own risk. Neither Sun Microsystems nor the > OpenSolaris community are responsible for any legal costs associated > with the use or misuse of multimedia codecs and related utilities.
This will be definitely a viable solution for the distribution to be "as user friendly as possible". Will probably also solve the flow of questions in the aliases and the forums. The point (and your proposal do it) is to make clear that there is a *potential* legal problem. At the moment what users think is: "Solaris is not able to play my video/music, what can I expect from it". I've heard this comment countless times, from almost any user (technical savvy ones, not Joe Sixpacks-kind). This problem hurts Opensolaris perception more than anything else in my experience. The problem is big also in reality. I found myself not able to play mp3 (not obscure video codecs, mp3 music!). I solved it downloading a free (as in beer) codec from a German company and I recompile mplayer once in a while, but I'm not the 'typical user' that is trying a new distribution. We should not expect people to be able/willing to compile things *to be on par with other FOSS distro*, and not to create something new and shiny. Again, my opinion for what it worth (of course), gt _______________________________________________ indiana-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/indiana-discuss
