[LUAU] Ubuntu... Legalities

[Julian Yap]

--- David Kiwerski <wp2aat at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Julian Yap wrote:
> > On Sat, 2006-06-03 at 13:22 -1000, Jim Thompson wrote:
> >   
> >> On Jun 3, 2006, at 11:28 AM, Hawaii Linux Institute wrote:
> >>     
> >>> But in order to do MP3, DVD, and/or play movies, etc., you
> need to  
> >>> do something extra.  Fortunately, there is a Python script
> that  
> >>> will do all these, and more, in one simple batch process:
> >>>
> >>> http://users.on.net/~goetz/EasyUbuntu/get.html
> >>>       
> >> Of course, once you do that, you no longer have a 100% FOSS
> system.
> >>     
> >
> > .. And also, you no longer have a legal system.
> >
> > For example, DVD playback capabilities are in violation of
> the U.S.
> > Digital Millennium Copyright Act (and similar laws in other
> countries)
> >
> > Some FOSS distros have similar pages which make for
> interesting reading:
> > http://en.opensuse.org/Restricted_Formats
> > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ForbiddenItems
> > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RestrictedFormatsProblem
> >
> > There's a bug in Malone regarding this issue as well:
> >
>
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-express/+bug/5237
> >
> > One solution is to install free (as in beer) software such
> as
> > RealPlayer.
> >
> > So yeah, on a personal level I'm looking into some of the
> legalities for
> > HOSEF.  As we are not a distribution like Ubuntu with a
> commitment to
> > FOSS, it may be legal for us to distribute non-free
> applications like
> > RealPlayer.  It would be on a case-by-case basis based on
> the
> > distribution clauses of the applications.  I'm still
> weighing things up
> > in my mind to even go down that route.
> >
> > Conversely, it is legal to license DVD playback and build a
> distro based
> > on Ubuntu and call it DVD-Ubuntu or something like that. 
> Say it costs
> > you $10 per seat.  You could then charge the break even cost
> per seat
> > for a copy of DVD-Ubuntu...  Now telling them that the cost
> of DVD
> > playback costs them $10 is one thing.  Educating them that
> the price of
> > freedom costs more than $10 is another thing.
> >
> > "If you give people freedom but don't teach them to value
> it, they won't
> > hold on to it for long. So it is not enough to spread free
> software. We
> > have to teach people to demand freedom, to fight for
> freedom. Then we
> > may be able to overcome the problems that today I see no way
> to solve."
> > - RMS (http://kerneltrap.org/node/4484)
> >
> > ~ Julian
> >   
> How would you explain Linspire's DVD player that plays
> commercial DVD's?
> 
> "The Linspire DVD player is a software multimedia player that
> includes 
> legal, licensed commercial-quality codecs and auto-detection
> of DVDs to 
> enhance the DVD playback experience under Linspire 4.5 and
> higher."  
> This from their website.

Linspire is a commercial Linux distribution.  They make the
effort to license DVD playback and other codecs.  Their target
market is to replace Windows XP Home.

Linspire this year announced their community distribution called
Freespire (http://www.freespire.org).  Linspire/Freespire is in
turn based off Debian.

Many of the commercial distributions have similar free (as in
freedom) community distributions.
SUSE = OpenSUSE
Redhat = Fedora

Tom Welch, CIO of Linspire spoke earlier this year at TPOSSCON:
http://www.hosef.org/wiki/TPOSSCON_2006_media

~ Julian