OpenSUSE 10.3 has been released today. "This version contains new beautiful green artwork, KDE 3.5.7 and parts of KDE 4, SUSE-polished GNOME 2.20, a GTK version of YaST, a new 1-click-install technology, MP3 support out-of-the-box, new and redesigned YaST modules, compiz and compiz fusion advances, virtualisation improvements, OpenOffice.org 2.3, Xfce 4.4.1, and much more!"
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Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2006-10-08
"win32-codecs is entirely illegal in Germany. It's not illegal on patent grounds, it's illegal on copyright grounds, and Germany had a perfectly serviceable copyright regime last time I checked."
Yes, win32-codecs was a bad example. But just imagine how users think: They want it working, no matter if something illegal is required. In Germany, many users use expeinsive MICROS~1 OSes ("Windows XP Professional") and applications ("Word", Photoshop) at home without having paid for it. While this situation is normal regarding commercial applications, Linux offers a lot for free - in a legal way. It's just... users don't care if something is illegal or not. They want it all working out of the box. And if it doesn't (due to legal restrictions), they make their decision: "Linux is stupid, it doesn't play my ripped DVDs and my video files; I'll stay with my good 'XP' where everything works."
Oops, I hear the KSK-RIAA-VAG (Command special forces - RIAA - violent assistance group) knocking at my door... :-)
Member since:2005-07-06
It's not illegal on patent grounds, it's illegal on copyright grounds, and Germany had a perfectly serviceable copyright regime last time I checked.
I'd love to know how they've covered that under copyright, because every single time this has come up in Germany (SanDisk for example) the issue of patents has been used. I was also greatly amused as to how someone from Sisvel got greatly worried about how the whole SanDisk debacle might invalidate patents they claim to hold.
Member since:2005-07-29
First of all, you don't need these w32-codecs anymore. Try Debian Etch and you'll see that most video and audio files will be played out of the box, even without Marillat's packages.
Moreover, I am from Germany and here most Linux users simply do not care about this patent stuff. The new copyright and patent laws are from 2003, but up to now, no Linux user has been accused by any copyright holder, not even for the use of libdvdcss2. Moreover, since it is possible now to buy such "multimedia licenses" (Fluendo, LinDVD, etc.), this is nowadays a minor problem in my opinion.
But we have real severe problems now. A new hacker law (the so-called "Hackerparagraph") has recently declared most common security tools (e.g. nessus, nmap, etc.) illegal.
So the download of a Linux distro which contains such tools (~100% of all Linux distros) is currently illegal in Germany.
This is a real problem, not this patent stuff.
Member since:2006-03-06
It's very easy to install codecs...in Yast, you can one-click to add community repositories and they include the codecs, etc. If you play a format that it doesn't know, it will also walk you through "one-clicking" to install the necessary files.
One would think that the German translations would be pretty good for Suse, since they were founded in Germany, by the way.
Member since:2006-10-08
"It's very easy to install codecs...in Yast, you can one-click to add community repositories and they include the codecs, etc."
I've seen a note on the release notes page, section "Comments". It really is easy. But it has to be done manually.
"If you play a format that it doesn't know, it will also walk you through "one-clicking" to install the necessary files."
This is an approach I really like: Assistance in the case of a missing module, similar to the invitation to download plugins for a browser if some strange content has been discovered.
"One would think that the German translations would be pretty good for Suse, since they were founded in Germany, by the way."
Of course, you could assume this relationship to exist, but just because someone's living in Germany doesn't imply he has the skills of fundamental language comprehension. Language quality (proper orthography, typography, grammar, punctuation, hyphenation) does not matter. We have a high rate of functional illitracy in Germany, so only very few users will notice anyway. :-)
If I go and check, I'll find errors, for sure. Missing commas, misplaced whitespaces, incorrect upper / lower case, incorrect typesetting... there are lots of possibilities. The spelling police is on its way. :-)
I used the term "translation" mostly in concern of how much has been translated in a minimal sufficient way. As it has been explained to me in a PC-BSD thread - just for example -, while KDE is in german, kmplayer (mplayer with KDE frontend) will stay in english because it's not a part of the KDE system and won't be affected by its language setting. So what the average user is asking for in first place: Can I select "German" at the first step of installation and will all my applications be in german then?
Member since:
2006-10-08
"can't wait to try this, looks excellent, especially the new faster bootup speed."
I'm especially interested in how good german internationalisation is, so it might be possible to hand a set of SuSE CDs / DVDs to my Joe Q. Sixpacks around. :-)
As far as I see from the article, i18n cannot be selected at install time (so, for installation and further use) if you get the CDs. It would be great to have designated language specific CDs either wirh KDE or Gnome available for download. DVD seems to be required for german users. Too much work just for testing... :-)
I'll still try the english CDs for KDE or Gnome because I like english systems better than incorrectly or incompletely translated german ones.
One thing german sixpack style users don't like about Linux (and SuSE, too): The "out of the box amount" lacks multimedia support for non-open formats. This is due to legal reasons, but they don't affect Germany. Just as a question: Would it be possible to install things like "win32-codecs" by default and advice the user to uninstall it if its use is not permitted in his country? At least, installing them afterwards on SuSE is very easy.
Finally, SuSE is a synonym for Linux in Germany, it's very well known. So I think the new release could encourage users to abandon expensive MICROS~1 products in order to gain more freedom, comfort and security without having to read or type much.