Interesting article

[Benjamin Scott]

On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 5:00 PM, Jon 'maddog' Hall <maddog at 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 ...

  Again, explaining why it is a hard problem does nothing to reduce
the problem.  We can bitch and moan about the copyright cartels all we
want, but the end-user is still unable to play DVDs on Linux, and
that's still a reason "Linux sucks".

  This is an area where Linux is *really* disadvantaged.  A lot of
problems are purely technological.  Apply some time and "enough
eyeballs", as ESR says, and the FOSS community will likely solve them.

  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.  People are conditioned to be "consumers", to pay for
everything.  "Intellectual property" law is notoriously poorly
understood by most people.  I work at company where "intellectual
property" is a key part of the material being manufactured, and people
who really should know better are regularly surprised by how this
stuff works (especially that works are copyright at their inception,
no registration or notification required).  So people don't even know
there is a problem, don't understand the problem when it is explained,
and just don't seem to care that much.

  Again, I don't have a good answer, but that doesn't mean the problem
goes away.  "Linux still sucks".

-- Ben