Why is it that MOST other distro’s of today have ALL the multi-media codecs installed out-of-the-box and Suse, being at the top of many people’s download list, don’t install any of these features including Flash? I looked on the Firefox plug-ins website and there is no Flash to be found for Suse! I tried downloading RPM flash on Adobe’s site and the install failed!
Why is it that I need to put hours on end into an operating system before I can even get any personal work accomplished or simply watch a HULU movie??
That’s because most of these multimedia codecs are closed source, proprietary, non-free software. openSUSE follows the Free Software Philosophy, which implies that such codecs should not be included so liberally in a distribution.
To top it off: if you just want a good distro that can play your multimedia and movies, use Linux Mint. It comes preinstalled with all the proprietary codecs for running your multimedia.
Yah… well, I HATE that rule!!! It’s BOGUS!!! JUST MAKE IT WORK!!!
I used to use Mint XFCE until the final latest release. It no longer works on ANY of my 3 computers!! After the final release, it turned to garbage! I have NO idea what happened in the final, but Mint is OUT for me. I have an Intel 64 bit laptop, an AMD Acer 32 bit micro tower, both with vista and a Netbook with XP Home and it won’t work on any of these. I even tried installing it on my friend’s Gateway that’s 2 years old and NO GO!
Actually, I have tried MANY different distro’s now and also in the past… and to me, it seems as though Linux is getting worse than better. I find more problems in many distro’s than I ever did 2 years ago. It REALLY makes Windows 7 look more tempting!!
EDIT: And HOW do I install Flash so I can watch HULU?
It has little to do with the software being free or not. libavcodec, x264… we have free software implementations of most codecs.
The problem is that these codecs are patented. If you don’t have a license for these patents (that cost money, do you want to pay for openSUSE?) it is illegal to distribute those codecs.
It isn’t a decision from the openSUSE Project, it is a legal obligation to not include the codecs.
Why others include those codecs then? Well… some of them are just not respecting the patents. That isn’t a problem until the patent holder sues you. If you are a little group of people without money… nobody is going to sue you to take a money you don’t have.
Others… well, Canonical Ltd. is a company from the Isle of Man - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia… not part of the European Union, neither from the Commonwealth of Nations. I don’t pretend to understand its legal status…
So… openSUSE doesn’t includes patented codecs just because it can’t. If you want openSUSE to include them get the money to buy the patent licenses.
But note that the license will allow openSUSE to distribute the codecs… but probably wouldn’t allow its users to distribute them. So you would not be allowed to give a copy of openSUSE to a friend.
About Flash. It is available in the “flash-player” package from the Non-OSS repository. From openSUSE 11.2 Firefox will come with an extension that will change the “download the plugin from Macromedia” to something that will suggests to install the package from the openSUSE repository.
I just DL’ed Ubuntu’s beta and am running the Live disk and installed flash while running the LIVE disk with not a single problem! Watching HULU right now!! rotfl!
You know… with all the things Suse lacks… it’s really a wonder HOW they stay ranked at the top of Distrowatches site.
Yes, it’s bogus. See you in court then when Novell gets in legal trouble for distributing such things. Canonical and others are always living on the edge of legal problems
I can understand why you might draw that conclusion, but it’s not the real reason given the the optional non-oss components of the distro i.e. extra CD and repo.
Given Novell’s commercial activities including their employment of openSUSE developers, the company is more exposed to its competitors seeking legal remedies against it for any infringement. Novell may also hold with appropriate business ethics concerning companies’ property.
What is YaST for? For configuring the system, installing packages, and you can install non-free software too, if you want. openSUSE just doesn’t put them in front of your eyes, for legal reasons.
You can download all the patented codecs you want in openSUSE, but they’re not included by default, just so that you can redistribute the software without falling into legal issues. And sorry for telling that they’re not included just for moral reasons: the reason they are not included is due to software patents.
I wonder how Ubuntu manages to get out of legal issues so easily: allowing users to redistribute software with patented codecs pre-installed.
And openSUSE is not one of the top distros at Distrowatch for nothing. If you will look in-depth at openSUSE and the benefits it provides (YaST deserves full marks too) over other distros, you may change your mind.
I can understand why you might draw that conclusion, but it’s not the real reason given the the optional non-oss components of the distro i.e. extra CD and repo.
Given Novell’s commercial activities including their employment of openSUSE developers, the company is more exposed to its competitors seeking legal remedies against it for any infringement. Novell may also hold with appropriate business ethics concerning companies’ property.[/QUOTE]IMHO this reads to be hair splitting to me. Regardless of the reason to which NONE of use really know, we can only speculate, openSUSE is following the Free Software Philosophy closer and hence IMHO what BrownieCat is saying is still correct.
The conclusion isn’t correct because the original statement isn’t correct:
I mean, for x86-64 you can get ftp://ftp.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/essential-amd64-20071007.tar.bz2 that contains cook.so (COOK audio), drvc.so (RV30/40) and sipr.so (RealAudio Sipro). You know of any other non-free codec for Linux x86-64 (whatever there is also a free software implementation or not)? I think those three are all of them.
COOK audio, RV30 and RV40 are supported by libavcodec. So the ONLY format that is only supported through a non-free implementation is Sipro (an old audio codec used by RealAudio 4/5 years ago, I don’t think anybody uses it anymore since the latest is RealAudio 10).
And, of course you never split hairs or speculate about anything, do you? IMO, BrownieCat is speculating about a philosophy. However, it won’t have escaped your attention that I didn’t say his “implied” reason was wrong, so I detect some odd bias in your post. You may care to review your comments in this post concerning your own speculation.
Where company business is involved, I would support a legal reason over a philosophical reason, and the balance of probability would be on my side, and yours apparently. Surely you would not expect a Novell developer working on the openSUSE project to suddenly behave differently with regard to intellectual property.
Following a philosophy “closer”, only proves that the whole philosophy is not being followed. There is little difference in intent, between that and a company using a loophole to get around laws affecting intellectual property. Both are effectively avoiding total compliance.
The problem is that even if you have a “free solution”, it may still contain potential patent issues, hence it’s “safer” from a business sense to let someone else handle the distribution in a country here these things aren’t as “tight”.
Yep, always making his own version of what others have said and then throwing it at them as if they have said it and it’s a fact… Good thing I’ve blocked *** so I can’t see what he writes, unless someone quotes his replies
Who really knows the real reason? Who goes to lunch with the CEO of Novell and has these answers ? I don’t. I don’t think ANYONE participating in this thread does.
So how can anyone say what the “real reason” might be?
We can all only speculate and offer our beliefs or our best assessment.
if it continues the way it is now and does not focus on the original subject, then yes, move it to soap box. But keep in mind that just becasue it’s in soap box, does not mean that word twisting and insults should go on and be allowed, thus in the end degrading the thread
