[Ilugc] mp3 supports in linux
- From: sundaram@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rahul)
- Date: Mon Aug 21 17:12:10 2006
Toufeeq Hussain wrote:
I would have to disagree with that. There are few people who understand
the complete details on either the ethical side or the technical
arguments completely. Both of these are worth repeating to all the
constant influx of new people flowing in.
Is it a necessity that when a new linux user is born he is told the
whole Mahabharata and Ramayana ?
The analogy doesnt fit. Free software and the ideas surrounding it is
not religious epics. On the other hand if you a student studying
religions it would be a pretty good to know these epics rather than
discard them as useless artifacts of age old minds. In general its a
good idea to understand how things has evolved especially if you are
directly benefiting from those ideas. We dont study history as students
for nothing.
Patents issues, DRM etc have become relatively major issues recently and
unless you continue to reflect upon those changes in licenses and the
community in general it has the potential to severely curb what Free
software can do and it has already has in many instances.
These don't effect the joe-desktop-user at all. Today's catch phrase
seems to be "It just works and I don't care how it works!".
Setting aside the fact that every user is affected by different set of
things and so called "joe desktop user" is a mythical non existent
caricature, DRM is something that does affect typical desktop users
playing videos or listening to songs (Why am I being restricted that the
songs I brought can only being played 5 times in a year?). Patent issues
do too indirectly (why cant I play mp3 or watch encrypted DVD's?). Our
value systems are not tied to what typical desktop users care about and
doing so is a very narrow view point . Linux is flexible enough to a
broad variety of needs.
There has to be a well defined path on how the battle will be fought
depending on the occasion. If the adversary needs to be conforted on
ethical issues then we need to shift into ethical mode. If the
technology/business mode is required we need to shift into it
correspondingly.
Right. It is just that ignoring political issue like software patents or
trying to solve them technically doesnt work. Legal problems might very
well render Free software unusable in several places. If you dont care
about that you drive yourself into a niche.
The thing is, today's battles on FOSS are shifting
more towards the tech-mode rather than the ethics mode. Basically, we
have played the ethical card multiple times (and at times scared
people away). It's now time to play the tech-cards and those will give
us better results(user-base) than the ethics-cards.
In principle if you are scared by ethical arguments then you need to
understand that aspect better rather than question people whose value
systems are different than yours. A large amount of the community has
got involved got into it because of the ethical side of the argument.
Sure, there are technical side effects of the system and that has its
place. One shouldnt brush off the technical benefits but its only fair
to take into other beliefs into consideration especially when there are
more and more non-technical issues affecting Free software.
Rahul
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