Canonical has explained why it has licensed H264. As it turns out, the license does not cover the distribution as a whole - since Ubuntu is entirely Free software, the license cannot be included. Canonical has licensed H264 so that it can offer it as an option to OEMs, just as it does with Flash, Fluendo, and some others. Since this is just an option for OEMs, it does not mean that every pre-installed Ubuntu system comes with the H264 license - it depends on whether or not your OEM decided to include it (good luck finding that out). And people actually promote this complicated spaghetti licensing situation.
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Member since:2010-03-08
...or use something else than Ubuntu, claiming that it's proprietary technology since it's fully owned by an individual which can suddenly change windows button position in order to create a bad clone of the system tray on the right side of windows (right side is a mandatory requirement. People must close windows while trying to open the file menu with a touchpad/touchscreen, it improves their productivity), without caring a rat's ass about what the developers and designers have to say.
Works pretty well as long as there are other nice distros around 
And when there's no more, you have to write a new free operating system and start again until it gets cursed with nonsense. A bit tiring, actually, but this is the price you pay for preferring free OSs over Windows and Mac OS X.
Sometimes I wonder why I do so. Then I have to boot on the XP partition for some reason. Get silly popups everywhere. Endure a DNS bug that leads to waiting 30 seconds each time I ask for a page in a web browser. Have an antivirus running in the background that slows down every single HDD access. An ugly "bozo the clown" theme that can't be changed without violating the EULA. Insanely slow global performance. And then I remember about the activation procedure. I remember that I paid for all of this. And I say "oh, well...".
Current free OSs are not ready for the average joe. They just can't prevent breaking things everyday and hence require some knowledge and patience. However, they clearly have some potential, so who knows...
Edited 2010-05-07 09:58 UTC
The day has finally come! Jolla has finally announced the launch device for its Sailfish operating system - and by god this is a looker. It's decidedly different from other phones out there, but it has good specifications and carries a relatively reasonably price tag - EUR 399, and it's up for pre-order today, shipping in the fourth quarter of this year.
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
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"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.The day has finally come: Google has started shipping Google Glass to the lucky few early adopters. Now that it's shipping, Google has also unveiled a lot more about the API and the specifications of the device itself. While the company had already given out substantial details at earlier occasions, there are still a few surprises here.
Member since:
2009-05-20
Where is the Linux's people's army?
You know, those who have kicked and screamed about The Evil Apple all this time, defended The One True Freedom and Freedomz Codecs.
Must be disappointing. But of course it is the nature of Freedom that you are Free to twist the words so that Ubuntu is still Freedom although it is not quite Freedom and Free. We must reevaluate subclause 3.1812.3 in the third Freedom Clause of the Freedom License.
Edited 2010-05-07 09:06 UTC