Submitted by The sixth pre-release of Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring is here. This pre-release includes support for easy synchronization of Windows Mobile 5+, Blackberry and Nokia devices, the Codeina multimedia codec installation system, support for Radeon HD 3xxx series graphics cards, more improvements to the Mandriva software installation tools, the finalized 2008 Spring theme, a new metapackage for easily installing a complete LAMP setup, and available KDE 4.0.2. See here for download information.
I am curious how Mandriva benefits from it since they are a distribution based on France where patents on software is not enforced and they can legally ship Free software even when it is patent encumbered unlike Fedora which is US based on has to rely on Codeina as shown at
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Multimedia/Codeina
Perhaps Mandriva would one day like to do some business in patently dark places such as the US?
I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer, and I couldn’t care less.
Would be a great idea BTW if Fedora would ‘relocate’ and become, officially, a distribution located in, say, Venezuela, or North Korea, or wherever those dumb patents don’t apply.
Although I guess that this would require a ‘move’ of Red Hat as well. I’m not sure the shareholders are willing to go to Aruba or P’yongyang for every meeting.
Good fun though.
Believe it or not, the suggestion to move Fedora to a different location comes up more often than you can imagine. This is completely impractical if you care about distributing in regions where software patents are indeed enforced and is not a long term solution since more and more regions are being forced by treaties to enforce similar laws.
The long term solution would be to eliminate the problem globally and there are many intermediate solutions been worked out including the following that Red Hat/Fedora participates in
http://www.redhat.com/legal/patent_policy.html
http://www.redhat.com/truthhappens/public_policy/
http://www.redhat.com/magazine/014dec05/features/oin/
Does the suggestion pop up at Red Hat HQ too?
I admit I wasn’t entirely serious, well, a bit serious, but I try to be realistic.
However, I’m not sure if, what you suggest, too many regions will fall victim to patent aggression. With the present decline of American economic power comes a tendency, worldwide, to listen to US wishes just a little less.
(I hope you understand I’ve been looking in my magic crystal ball
.)
Although, admittedly, in the software business North America is likely to stay a very important region.
In any case, here’s to the final and cruel death of software patents!
It doesn’t matter where you’re based as long as you sell software into areas where patents are enforced.
by providing the legal codecs through linDVD (I think that’s it anyhow), users in the US and other patent restricted countries can use the software without any legally grey areas.
There are a number of ways to get codecs for Linux, but linDVD wouldn’t be one of them that I would use.
Google for “Fluendo”, “libavcodec” (included in mplayer) or “VLC”. Use (and pay for) only the first of these options if you are a suppressed and downtrodden unfortunate living in the US.
LinDVD is specifically for playing DVDs. None of the things you mentioned are relevant to this. The only freely available decoder for CSS (the encryption scheme used by DVD) is dvdcss. The use of dvdcss to watch encrypted commercial DVDs is illegal under the DMCA in the U.S. and the EUCD in the E.U.
Yep, it may be an ass, but it’s the law.
Codeina isn’t relevant to this, it does not handle DVD decryption, only providing licensed codecs for common video and audio formats.
The overall content of my short and undescriptive comment was that by providing legal codecs, Mandriva can be sold and used in regions where patent facism exists; DVD description codecs being the example chosen. My comment stands and does relate to the orginal post by intent but I could have been more descriptive.
Cheers for the clarification though and thanks to too the previous post for listing off other legal codec packages users can choose without being forced into running win32/64 against there will.
oh dear… if people are really going to start equating software patents to fascism (has a patent software supporter ever beaten you with iron bars and poured castor oil down your throat for resisting his third way between capitalism and socialism?), then I suppose free software really is communism.
can I declare this thread “Godwin-Lite”-ed?
I have Mandriva Linux 2008 Powerpack installed on my laptop, and thus far it has been quite useable really. Some issues here and there, mostly codecs, but that’s not what I’m here to rant about. I’m just wondering can these RC releases be installed over Powerpack installation without ruining anything?
soo close.. that second week of April is almost here..
Think about baseball!
I don’t mind seeding torrents during the day when I’m at work, but I hate downloading them in DVD size. I don’t see an alternative on Mandriva’s site either. Anyone?
Er, the link for download information right in the story points you straight at a big list of direct download FTP / HTTP mirrors for this beta, and the default download method for stable releases when you go to http://www.mandriva.com and click on the big green Download button is direct FTP / HTTP. It actually takes *effort* to find the torrent files, and there are no torrents for pre-releases like this one, so I’m really not sure what you mean.
I get mine by ye’ old fashioned HTTP and FTP. They have a nice list of mirrors available though I don’t have the link handy. ftp-linux.cc.gatech.edu is one source, sunsite.unc.edu is another.
I’ve also taken too keeping a local repository collection by rsync since I tend to uninstall and install VMs at whim depending on what config setup I’m trying for a particular puzzle.
I tried Mandriva in Spring 2007 (for the first time) because of the Metisse desktop. However, in subsequent releases of Mandriva it does not seem to be included. Anyone know why? I could not find a reason, but may not have been looking in the right location.
You could probably copy the theme directory too your later version isntalls. It’s not the pointy-clicky solution but it may help. I’ve gone so far as to pull themes from completely different distros in the same way.
The odd theme for me is a very osX looking metal theme that sometimes apears and sometimes not though I haven’t identified which repository is the variable between installs in that case.
You could probably copy the theme directory too your later version isntalls. It’s not the pointy-clicky solution but it may help. I’ve gone so far as to pull themes from completely different distros in the same way.
Metisse is not a theme, it’s a desktop composer similar to Compiz-fusion. I have never used Metisse myself nor do I know what it requires to function but it might be possible to just install any relevant rpms from the older release and have it working. Though, I am using Powerpack 2008 and I did notice the choice between Metisse and Compiz-fusion.
Hm.. I may have to go read about Metisse and check out the screen shots. I don’t know if things would break by trying to include the older distribution rpms into your newer distribution install. It may be worth trying in a VM unless you can find forum posts about people already trying it.
Now.. of to find me some screenshots.
Metisse is still available in all later releases, including 2008 Spring, it’s right there as a choice in drak3d.
Quite a lot of people are using running 2008 Spring on the Eee and using Metisse, actually – apparently it’s rather helpful for handling windows on that small screen.
thanks and please keep supporting Metisse. Don’t blindly walk into the light of the Compiz-Fusion bandwagon.