Is RedHat deliberately CRIPPLING Linux?

[JohnBernstein]

Is RedHat deliberately CRIPPLING Linux?

Many on this forum have complained that a discussion on Redhat's CRIPPLING of Linux has hijacked a thread by someone called Nick.

They have a point, and to remedy the situation I have started this thread.

Nick's thread is here

Summarizing my side of the argument:

Redhat has systematically removed functionality from Linux:

1) they compiled out MP3 support.
2) they stopped providing the traditional read-only support for Microsoft's NTFS file-system.
3) they do not provide available Linux video editing software.
4) they do not provide available DVD support.
5) they do not provide a way for Linux to play movies (more generally, this is a problem for all of Linux).

The shills for the movie and music business have made unconvincing attempts to justify Redhat's despicable behavior, but I will let them speak for themselves.

 

[nweaver]

Originally posted by: JohnBernstein
Is RedHat deliberately CRIPPLING Linux?

1) they compiled out MP3 support.
2) they stopped providing the traditional read-only support for Microsoft's NTFS file-system.
3) they do not provide available Linux video editing software.
4) they do not provide available DVD support.
5) they do not provide a way for Linux to play movies (more generally, this is a problem for all of Linux).

1. Redhat is chasing corporate server market, I don't play MP3's on my servers

2. I don't read NTFS drives in my linux server. Why would I?

3. I don't edit video's on my server

4. I don't play DVD's on my server

5. I don't play movies on my server

On my Gentoo/Ubuntu boxs...

It's a single command to enable MP3, They can read NTFS out of box, single command to install video editing, simple to play DVD's, can play more video files out of box, or with a single command install.

 

[Bluestealth]

They also don't want to get sued for using a non-licensed mp3 codec and their corporate market probably doesn't care much.

 

[hardcandy2]

Like the others pointed out, Redhat is after a slice of the market that avoids controversy if it can help it.
Fedora Core is another animal. It is supported developmentally by Redhat. All distros require you install some extra programs from servers outside North America to play dvd's, movie avi files, and in a lot of cases, mp3's. Some distros that are based in other countries may have this functionality already installed but it is only because they are downloaded from servers where US copyright law does not apply or is weak. .
Suse is the same way as Redhat.
And besides, who would install Redhat desktop if they wanted to use linux at home? It is clearly labeled as a corporate desktop linux distro.
I do not understand your vehemence against Redhat, linux is free to be whatever the developers of a distro want it to be. Redhat is not destroying linux. Last I looked it was one of about 140 distros. Hopefully you did not shell out the money for Redhat desktop, if you did you are foolish for not doing any research.

 

[JohnBernstein]

Originally posted by: Bluestealth
They also don't want to get sued for using a non-licensed mp3 codec,.....

This has been dealt with many times on the other thread.
Redhat is free to pay the royalties just like Microsoft does.

In fact the rates are peanuts. A bargain:

A ONE-OFF payment of $50,000 per software decoder, see: http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/index.html

Redhat is NOT worried about being sued at all,.... cause $50,000-60,000 would fix the problem quickly and forever, but they choose not to make this small investment,... WHY.

and their corporate market probably doesn't care much.

Their corporate market cares a lot about interoperability with Microsoft,... yet Redhat deliberately cripples this by removing the traditional read-only support for Microsoft's NTFS file-system.

Why would Redhat do such a stupid thing?

Some have said patents,... but this is false. There are no patents on the NTFS, otherwise the technical details of the NTFS file-system would be publicly available through the patent office. However, they are not available.

So why does Redhat deliberately cripple it appeal to the US business market?

Originally posted by: nweaver

1. Redhat is chasing corporate server market, I don't play MP3's on my servers

2. I don't read NTFS drives in my linux server. Why would I?

3. I don't edit video's on my server

4. I don't play DVD's on my server

5. I don't play movies on my server

6. I don't use the graphics system on my server

So then, Redhat will soon be removing the Linux X11-graphics support from their distro!?!?!

As we all know: running the X11-graphics environment is a security risk for a server.

 

[sigs3gv]

Originally posted by: JohnBernstein

Originally posted by: Bluestealth
They also don't want to get sued for using a non-licensed mp3 codec,.....

This has been dealt with many times on the other thread.
Redhat is free to pay the royalties just like Microsoft does.

In fact the rates are peanuts. A bargain:

A ONE-OFF payment of $50,000 per software decoder, see: http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/index.html

Redhat is NOT worried about being sued at all,.... cause $50,000-60,000 would fix the problem quickly and forever, but they choose not to make this small investment,... WHY.

and their corporate market probably doesn't care much.

Their corporate market cares a lot about interoperability with Microsoft,... yet Redhat deliberately cripples this by removing the traditional read-only support for Microsoft's NTFS file-system.

Why would Redhat do such a stupid thing?

Some have said patents,... but this is false. There are no patents on the NTFS, otherwise the technical details of the NTFS file-system would be publicly available through the patent office. However, they are not available.

So why does Redhat deliberately cripple it appeal to the US business market?

Like mweaver said, why waste $50,000-$60,000 on something you don't need? Redhat is for servers. AFAIK, servers do not require high multimedia support.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: JohnBernstein

Originally posted by: Bluestealth
They also don't want to get sued for using a non-licensed mp3 codec,.....

This has been dealt with many times on the other thread.
Redhat is free to pay the royalties just like Microsoft does.

In fact the rates are peanuts. A bargain:

A ONE-OFF payment of $50,000 per software decoder, see: http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/index.html

Redhat is NOT worried about being sued at all,.... cause $50,000-60,000 would fix the problem quickly and forever, but they choose not to make this small investment,... WHY.

and their corporate market probably doesn't care much.

Their corporate market cares a lot about interoperability with Microsoft,... yet Redhat deliberately cripples this by removing the traditional read-only support for Microsoft's NTFS file-system.

Why would Redhat do such a stupid thing?

Some have said patents,... but this is false. There are no patents on the NTFS, otherwise the technical details of the NTFS file-system would be publicly available through the patent office. However, they are not available.

So why does Redhat deliberately cripple it appeal to the US business market?

How often do you need to read NTFS on the production Linux servers you run? I don't have many of them, but I've never had to do it. Nor have I wanted to play an mp3 on them, and if I did I know how to do it. :evil:

Originally posted by: nweaver

1. Redhat is chasing corporate server market, I don't play MP3's on my servers

2. I don't read NTFS drives in my linux server. Why would I?

3. I don't edit video's on my server

4. I don't play DVD's on my server

5. I don't play movies on my server

6. I don't use the graphics system on my server

So then, Redhat will soon be removing the Linux X11-graphics support their distro.

As we all know: running the X11-graphics environment is a security risk for a server.

X11 is less of a security risk than a lot of other daemons. It's the software running on X11 servers that's the problem.

Plus it's nice to setup X11 servers occassionally. It's also nice to have X11 on development systems, which also don't need multimedia support. :beer:

 

[JohnBernstein]

So none of you guys have a clue what you are talking about,.... that's what I thought.

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
It's also nice to have X11 on development systems, which also don't need multimedia support. :beer:

That's a croc of sh|t. I won't spend a day coding without music playing I could sit there with my iPod, but then I don't get to check out what the rest of the office is listening to

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: JohnBernstein
So none of you guys have a clue what you are talking about,.... that's what I thought.

Go away. People don't need this sort of crap.

If you want people listen to you stop acting like a idiot and they'd probably stop treating you like one.

Also for your website try to use something nice. You don't have to be a web developer to use something like Drupal and at least get a decent looking site.

And redhat isn't crippling linux. Out of all the distros they are the ones that contribute more software, more code, more expertiese into the Linux kernel, gcc and other items then anybody else. To say that they have spent millions on commercial software only to then turn around and open source it, spend lots of money and developer hours to improve POSIX threading support, GCC security and performance items, 2.6 kernel development, automated testing only to THEN go and intentionally cripple 'Linux' by removing read-only NTFS support and MP3 support is utter nonsense.

Your the one that doesn't have a clue, your the one that doesn't know what yoru talking about. Redhat is one of the single best things that has happenned to Linux since RMS founded the GNU project.

I don't love redhat, but I am smart enough to understand their contributions and have respect for what they do.

What sort of credentials do you have other then a website that is a sub-par website that is little more then copy-paste from other people's websites?

Learn to talk like a adult then people will respond in a better way. Insult people and they are going to treat you like a spoiled brat and automaticly disregard anything and everything you say.

 

[kylef]

Could it be, quite simply, that Red Hat objects to and refuses to pay license fees?

What DVD support for Linux are you proposing that they provide? At last I checked, there was no "blanket-license" for MPEG2 like there is for Mp3. In fact, the per-decoder license cost charged by the Motion Picture Experts Group for providing DVD playback support is closer to $5 last I checked. Why would Red Hat eat this cost for everyone? If you want a DVD codec, go and buy one yourself.

Their corporate market cares a lot about interoperability with Microsoft,... yet Redhat deliberately cripples this by removing the traditional read-only support for Microsoft's NTFS file-system.

Since when have corporate customers cared about mounting NTFS partitions in Linux? This is a dual-boot scenario, not a "corporate" scenario. Corporations care much more about network interop (e.g., Samba).

There are no patents on the NTFS, otherwise the technical details of the NTFS file-system would be publicly available through the patent office.

Just because the base implementation of NTFS itself does not appear to be patented, that doesn't mean that a truly interoperable NTFS implementation is non-infringing. For example, if your NTFS implementation supports long file name interop, you would be infringing on this patent. There are many more if you do a search.

My guess is that Red Hat doesn't think that mounting NTFS is that critical of a scenario to risk a patent infringement lawsuit.

Edit: fixed typo.

 

[Bluestealth]

I agree, NTFS mounting doesn?t make sense to include at all at a corporate setting, when you are going to be using networking protocols to interoperate.

BTW isn?t it Totem/XMMS/etc... that Redhat should donate the money for mp3 licensing to? Would they accept it? is it by OS? I don?t think Redhat makes the player like Microsoft so I couldn?t say for sure.
It seems to me that it is easier to leave out something that corporate users aren?t completely reliant on in a corporate OS, and allow the customer to choose if they want to include it, not just bundle it all up and dump it all on the customer.

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: Bluestealth
BTW isn?t it Totem/XMMS/etc... that Redhat should donate the money for mp3 licensing to? Would they accept it? is it by OS? I don?t think Redhat makes the player like Microsoft so I couldn?t say for sure.

I doubt the individual players would want a license as this would be somewhat restricting to them. For instance, if you want to fork one of them, does the license go with it? If a fork is an even split of the current project, who gets the license? It could get much foggier than that.

Redhat, on the other hand, can simply offer it as a blob that plugs into all the various players. They're less likely to fork and the blob would just be removed when projects like centos repackage the source code. (Not that I'm advocating redhat buying a license. If they want to support multimedia, they should just stick with free codecs, thereby hopefully making them more popular).

 

[hardcandy2]

The OP really needs to see a doctor, have you seen the site he has linked? Psychotropic drugs is what he/she needs.

 

[JohnBernstein]

I'm impressed. So nearly everyone here supports Redhat crippling their product.
Interesting that.
Look at the crap you spout:

BTW isn?t it Totem/XMMS/etc... that Redhat should donate the money for mp3 licensing to?

As if Redhat would not pass the cost to the end-user.
Do you people believe anything you say?

For example, if your NTFS implementation supports long file name interop, you would be infringing on this patent.

Method and system for providing a common name space for long and short file names in an operating system

That's nearly as good as this patent:

Method and system for providing a common name space for long and short words in a book

I guess that other operating systems are in violation of such stupidity as the patent you just puked up.

Certainly the ISO9660 standard is in violation -- but hey,... that existed before NTFS.

At first glance it appears that storing an ISO9660-image on an MSDOS file system is a breach of this crazy patent.

Fortunately the rest of the world is not as mad as Americans and will not tolerate such gross stupidity as these types of patents.

Besides it would be easy to circumvent a patent as silly as that one.

 

[Bluestealth]

I don't even use Redhat, Linux is a kernel, the rest is a software package, you don't like Redhat?s... get someone else?s... seriously that?s the whole point.

BTW Redhat dumps loads of money into OSS, I fail to see how they are crippling Linux, there is no embracing and extending like Microsoft, and no utilizing and not giving back like Apple.

 

[JohnBernstein]

Originally posted by: Bluestealth
BTW Redhat dumps loads of money into OSS, I fail to see how they are crippling Linux, there is no embracing and extending like Microsoft, and no utilizing and not giving back like Apple.

Redhat is not crippling Linux as such,... it is crippling those aspects of Linux that are a threat to the music and movie industry and strangely enough, a threat to M$. And yes, Redhat does help a lot in areas other than those perceived as a threat to the music and movie industry and M$.

So, who has an interest in the music and movie industry and M$.

 

[kylef]

Originally posted by: JohnBernstein
I guess that other operating systems are in violation of such stupidity as the patent you just puked up.

You didn't even read the patent, did you? Did you read the title and give up?

"Puked up"? Nice troll. Don't expect any more responses from me.

 

[JohnBernstein]

Originally posted by: kylef
You didn't even read the patent, did you? Did you read the title and give up?

Actually, I read enough of it to realize that it was a patent APPLICATION and NOT a patent.

Do you have any idea if this silly patent APPLICATION was ever approved.

Originally posted by: drag
What sort of credentials do you have other then a website that is a sub-par website that is little more then copy-paste from other people's websites?

Hey NOT **** TRUE

All of the Linux stuff is (essentially) original. Lots of ideas from other places of course, but not even close to cut and paste.

The closest to non-original are the Javascript movies which came from a few high quality 9/11 videos (of the collapse of the WTC buildings and the planes hitting the buildings etc) that are publicly available on the web --- but they were originally videos, not Javascript movies.

In fact the 9/11 videos came from this page

http://linux.coconia.net/gr/523.htm

which I had to salvage from Google as the original site "went missing".

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: JohnBernstein

Originally posted by: Bluestealth
BTW Redhat dumps loads of money into OSS, I fail to see how they are crippling Linux, there is no embracing and extending like Microsoft, and no utilizing and not giving back like Apple.

Redhat is not crippling Linux as such,... it is crippling those aspects of Linux that are a threat to the music and movie industry and strangely enough, a threat to M$.

Like Ogg Vorbis, Xvid, and FLAC? :roll:

And yes, Redhat does help a lot in areas other than those perceived as a threat to the music and movie industry and M$.

So, who has an interest in the music and movie industry and M$.

You have choice. Exercise it.

RH has the right to charge for those 'missing features', should they want to. If people don't like it, they will switch to another distro. Debian, Slackware, and even RH clones (CentOS being the main one, ATM) are alive and well. Oh, wait, they don't include the features you want, either...

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: JohnBernstein
Redhat is not crippling Linux as such,... it is crippling those aspects of Linux that are a threat to the music and movie industry and strangely enough, a threat to M$. And yes, Redhat does help a lot in areas other than those perceived as a threat to the music and movie industry and M$.

So, who has an interest in the music and movie industry and M$.

It has nothing to do with the music and movie industries and more about what their customers need/want. How many of your production linux servers use NTFS filesystems? Play mp3s?

Why not complain about the applications? They aren't ponying up the license fees, it's their faults. Redhat just packages the stuff.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: JohnBernstein
So none of you guys have a clue what you are talking about,.... that's what I thought.

Wasn't it crap like this and the constant spamming of your site the reasons we got you banned in the first place?

 

[Markbnj]

Hey, JohnBernstein, I found the text format buttons, thanks to your inspiration. I will be using them in all future posts. Check it out:

JohnBernstein is a tool

Pretty neat, huh? And how about this one:

JohnBernstein is an asshat

Bold _italics_ baby. You see that, and know those words are true.

 

[nweaver]

Originally posted by: Markbnj
Hey, JohnBernstein, I found the text format buttons, thanks to your inspiration. I will be using them in all future posts. Check it out:

JohnBernstein is a tool

Pretty neat, huh? And how about this one:

JohnBernstein is an asshat

Bold _italics_ baby. You see that, and know those words are true.

maybe JohnBernstein can't code html worth a damn, but does the copy/paste dance ok

 

[bsobel]

Actually, I read enough of it to realize that it was a patent APPLICATION and NOT a patent. Do you have any idea if this silly patent APPLICATION was ever approved.

Then I suggest you need to work on your reading skills. The link given was directly to US patent 6,286,013 issued 9/4/2001.

Second, I suggest you modify your tone used when addressing other members of this forum.