On 3/29/06, Michael J Knox <michael@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Nor do I think telling someone "There are already other distributions > out there which does this if this is really the only thing you want" is > the correct way to tackle, what is, a real world issue. Nor is conveniently ignoring the fact that the underlying issue is the very thorny messy nature as to software patents and how software patents interact to restrict the freedoms and or rights typically granted in FOSS software.. freedoms that are essential to how foss development is done. To continue to try to discussion the issues surrounding supporting mp3 and other similar media technologies like they are just another piece of proprietary software code that can re-developed from scratch to fill a compatibility need is an egregious effort at miscommunication as to where the problems actually lie. Software patents very much constrain how collaborative development in an open source model can be done and I am very confident that certain people in this discussion of aware of that constrain and I continue to find it bemusing at the stance they are taking about trying to incorporate patent encumbered technologies into a software project which relies on the very freedoms and rights embodied in FOSS copyright licensing to enable the massively collaborative development effort that makes this project possible at all. This whole discussion is unconstructive and was intiated by a post, while well intentioned, was in fact using the wrong assumptions with regard to the patent situations. Once ESR recognized that the patent situation was more complicated than he had assumed this conversation should have been tabled until he made a personal effort to become more informed as to the patent issue. Instead he's chosen to continue in a discussion predicated on misinformation which he himself brought to this discussion. Quite frankly I'm very disappointed in his continued participation in this discussion because he continues to mislead people into believing that this is a simple matter of open source reverse engineering of a proprietary format..which it is not. I can not stress enough that the issue of software patents is vitally important and its impact on the freedoms and rights afforded to the community under FOSS copyright licensing can not be ignored when making arguments about weight pragmatic access to functionality against idealist views towards FOSS software distribution. In my personal opinion, the original post from ESR was less informed than most OSNews editorials I read, and that is a particularly low bar to meet. -jef -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
