I do believe that you are correct. There is always that specific group that
will cause problems when things are not exactly what they want. I think it
would be great if companies would open source their stuff, but that won't
happen. The next best thing would indeed be for binary only software. Given
that Linux is going more mainstream and drawing people in who have generally
not had source available (i.e. Windows and Mac users) the community as a
whole will be more accepting of binary only.
I think a model such as Corel has taken with WordPerfect is great. You give
out a version of your software that is above the 30-45 day die ware that
many companies give out, that only is less some functionality (fonts in WP),
and then sell a version that has some more features. (As far as I know, the
only difference in the Download and PE of WP is the font issue.) I like Word
Perfect and had an Academic version of Suite 8 for Win, and purchased the PE
version for Linux because 1) I thought the font support would be nice, and
2) I wanted to send them a message that binary was okay.
I think that perhaps contacting some of these companies that already have
done DVD viewers and letting them know that in fact binary only is ok. They
probably already have paid the fee to DVD CCA and could be the first ones
out and grab a nice chunk of the market. I'm sure that they don't charge
much to the video card manufacturers and possibly could charge somewhere
around the same amount and the community would buy it. The thing to remember
is that for those publicly held companies, their first obligation is to
their shareholders, not to the customer.
We need people who are level headed and won't throw a tantrum when someone
releases binaries, or doesn't do anything. I think that Bruce Perans does a
lot in this regards. If I wrote software and was looking at releasing
something to the Linux (or any other Open Source community) and seen the
fall out (mail bombing and the like) binary only, I would definitely think
twice about it. Who wants to clean up all that stuff?
Sorry I got a little carried away. I'm tired of the people who insist on
EVERYTHING being OS.
Patrick
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brad Cramer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2000 09:16
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [OT] DVD reading (was Re: Misc hardware questions
>
>
> I guess one question I have about this whole issue is I like everyone else
> in the Linux community believe in open source, but if a company
> dosen't want
> to open it's source what is stopping them from diong a bianary
> only version
> of a DVD viewer, they do that for Windows and Mac's. I guess my point is
> that if there is a piece of hardware that I want to use (i.e. DVD) and I
> can't get the source code I am willing to use a bianary only piece of
> software in order to use my hardware. Do all hardware manufactors not want
> to write software for Linux because they believe that if they do that they
> have to open their source?
> Just my .02 cents worth.
> Brad
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