While this thread has produced an interesting discussion, it has come nowhere near to answering the original question. The original question was what would be the likely effect on openSUSE if sites that were deemed to infringe copyrights and patents were blocked or taken down. openSUSE ships with restricted versions of certain programs in order to avoid problems. There are sites where non-restricted versions of these programs and additional programs are available without charge and it seems possible that they be be open to challenge.
It is reasonably clear that the openSUSE code should itself not have a problem but are there any widely used ad-on / replacement features where there is no ‘licensed’ alternatives available
On 06/03/2011 11:36 PM, vindevienne wrote:
>
> if sites that were deemed to infringe copyrights and patents were blocked or taken down.
so, in the hypothetical Land of If:
if sites that were deemed to infringe copyrights and patents were
blocked or taken down, you may rejoice that openSUSE would not be
affected in any way–because openSUSE (unlike, for example *bunut,
mint, etc) ships with no code known or believed to infringe on
anyone’s copyright or patent (despite the Mighty Microsoft’s veiled
threats otherwise that Linux itself infringes)…
what would change is that maybe every site (like, for instance
‘packman’) is no longer available…
or, no longer available as easily as now.
or, everyone who wished can purchase fully licensed, commerical
codecs–already…for example http://www.fluendo.com/
(unless it has changed, some commercial codes are shipped with SLED,
for example)
so, worry no more! ok?
–
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[NNTP via openSUSE 11.4 [2.6.37.6-0.5] + KDE 4.6.0 + Thunderbird 3.1.10]
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