Ian McDonald wrote:
Have a look at this if you are interested:
http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-6072760.html?part=rss&tag=6072760&subj=news In other news, the licensing changes that proceeded this have lead to https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2006-May/010876.html ie: you can enable multiverse on Dapper, and 'apt-get install sun-java5-jre', and be away. There is still an element of 'enabling something' to get multiverse, so while it still requires an extra step, it's * now just ticking a box in Synaptic * now coming from a trusted repository and officially maintained It's also now available in Debian non-free. expect it will make it to "out of the box" in major distros in due course, when suitably open sourced! This also brings to mind an issue I read about on Slashdot yesterday; http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/15/0532219&threshold=1
The main problem used to be that there simply wasn't good Free Software for what people wanted to do.
Now the main problem is that key elements of what people want to do are blocked by software patents and other legal stuff. People want to play MP3s, but can't because MP3 is not a Free codec. People want to watch DVDs, but can't because any Free Software DVD player program is classified as a "circumvention device" (and is therefore illegal) under [..] copyright law.
We've made progress. Software exists for doing everything we want to do, now we just need to get the laws changed so that we can use that software.
(http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=185764&cid=15334124) Craig