After takin' a swig o' grog, Roy Schestowitz belched out this bit o' wisdom:
> Linux Bling With 100% Free Software
>
> http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2007-01-12-019-35-OP-SW
"The idea is that bundling all manner of proprietry binary drivers
and multimedia codecs, and having 3D special-effects-desktops is
necessary to further the cause of Free Software. The plan is these
will attract huge steaming wads of users. Then when the huge steaming
wads of users attain a certain critical mass, somehow all that
proprietary guff will become Free, and joy will fill the land."
. . .
Still, you can put together a good-quality 100% Free desktop system.
For wireless networking, Ralink and Realtek both make chipsets with
GPL drivers and no binary kernel blobs. Several ATI video cards have
GPL 3D drivers. You can play encrypted DVDs on your Linux box with
the GPL libdvdcss. There are many GPL audio players, including mp3
players. ffmpeg and other FOSS programs play and encode virtually all
video formats.
The problems with multimedia playback and encoding are not software
licenses or a lack of software- it's patent encumbrances and DMCA
restrictions. Which makes these primarily a problem for United States
citizens, and the rest of the world laughs at us.
http://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/2006121402026NWKNDV
Kernel Developers: GPL-Only Modules in 2008
"Give people 12 months warning (time to work out what they're going
to do, talk with the legal dept, etc) then make the kernel load only
GPL-tagged modules," Morton wrote.
Hmmmm, and you thought only Stallman was interested in an untainted
kernel. However, the article notes that Torvalds himself is at odds
over this.
Personally, I'm willing to taint my kernel. VMware taints it. I may
pay a price later when VMware takes back its free (as in beer) software.
If that time comes, I'll figure out some other option (e.g. back to
QEMU).
--
The three Rs of Microsoft support: Retry, Reboot, Reinstall.
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