Canonical Offers Sale of Proprietary Codecs for Ubuntu 427
ruphus13 writes "Playing DVDs on Linux that required proprietary codecs has been a source of much pain. Ubuntu (or anyone else, for that matter) is not legally allowed to redistribute these codecs. So, users were left with sub-optimal choices. Convert the multimedia to an open format, acquire new media, or use a codec 'found' on the web, which may be illegal. In its continued effort to have a seamless and slick user experience, Canonical made the hard choice to offer the sale and support for proprietary codecs that users had to actually purchase for Ubuntu. This is not a fight Canonical can fight alone, and they are sure to get some grief for the decision."
Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope Canonical will just sell the install media (and download) with the codecs already in it. That would work really well for a lot of people. A boxed Ubuntu with all codecs on the store shelves for about $30 - $45 right next to the Windows Vista boxes (on sale for JUST $199!) would probably do quite well. Plus the word would start getting out how much easier it is to install and live with than Windows.
Yes, I wish we lived in a world where all formats, protocols, and standards were Free, but they never will be so long as capitalism remains our official state religion. Meanwhile, we still want to watch our movies and play our music.
Given the legal structures in place... (Score:4, Insightful)
Depends. (Score:5, Insightful)
New convertees to ubuntu (and there are a lot of them) might think that this whole "linux is free" thing is just a scam. Time will tell.
It depends how the streamlined process puts it.
If it is clearly stated that mostly all of linux is free, but in some legislation, there are patent fees applying for some technologies needed to access media.
If its clearly worded, the convertees could even better understand why everyone is making such a fuss about the patent system with this concrete example : There this nice thing called Linux, should be free for anyone to use, but no, because of some obscure patent, you're forced to pay.
Of course this problem is mainly constricted to English language where the word "free" collides two separate ideas of "freedom" and "costs nothing".
It's a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever you may think about software patents, the fact is that Canonical only has three choices here:
0) Not offer this software
1) Include the software for free, and break the law in some countries
2) Offer legal software, and pay the licensing fees
Ubuntu is my favorite distribution, and I'm happy to see legal, supported DVD playback.
I'm really tired of reading reviews that say "Great distribution, but it can't play back any of my media."
Now let's get Dell, Gateway, etc. to start pre-installing Ubuntu with the extra media options. It will be a better out-of-box experience than Vista.
steveha
Good on 'em! (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the things I've always liked about Ubuntu is their decision to give the users the choice between running completely free and open source software or accepting proprietary [(though often still free (as in beer)] software on their computers.
While I think it shameful that the DVD producers have decided that I need to pay extra to run a DVD that I already own, I applaud Canonical for giving me the option to do so easily.
Looks like the final piece has dropped into place! (Score:3, Insightful)
It looks like the final piece has dropped into place for Linux! Linux is getting preinstalls from major vendors (in Netbooks especially, but moreso in general too). Wine had a 1.0 release quite awhile and is still improving rapidly. Now, the multimedia perplex is also solved.
For those of you not already familiar, World Domination 201 [catb.org].
Re:Finally! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it is more appropriate to blame a broken patent system than capitalism itself. Patents impede competition which is an important concept in capitalism.
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, there's a lot of crap you have to do to get iPods working...
It doesn't actually conform to the USB Mass Storage spec, at least not for music. File storage, sure, but otherwise, no.
Re:Finally! (Score:2, Insightful)
Good call. Maybe one day North Korea will wake us up from our current state.
Re:Somebody had to do it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But are they better? (Score:4, Insightful)
Do other dvds work? If so, then it's the discs, stupid.
Yeah, I'm that stupid. Thanks for pointing it out.
Yes other discs work in linux. Guess what though, those SAME DAMN DVDS work great in the SAME DAMN HARDWARE, booted to Windows.
Thanks for the snarky comment, though.
Re:Finally! (Score:3, Insightful)
Free, but they never will be so long as capitalism remains our official state religion.
I'm no poly sci major, but I think patents constitute government interference in the free market.
Re:Somebody had to do it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, like me, they will say "fuck that" and use "illegal" codecs, laws be damned.
I'm not creating content with your proprietary codecs, so you can fuck off with your royalties.
Woohoo! (Score:5, Insightful)
How can anyone see this as bad? Canonical is giving you a CHOICE - *not* vendor lock-in. You can still install codecs in any other fashion suitable for your situation - but for those who don't WANT or have the knowledge of HOW to install them illegally, manually, or what have you - this is a new option.
Go Canonical! Go choice!
Re:Not new, just streamlined. (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is the real win for Canonical... OEM pre-installs.
Its doubtful that anyone who downloads Ubuntu for free will pay for these things... they will find the no-cost alternatives and use them.
What this does do however is give OEMs who want to pre-install Canonical a legal way to include these encumbered bits of software and roll the cost into the sale price of the computer/device the customer is purchasing.
So really this is a mechanism aimed at people buying computers with Ubuntu pre-installed, who won't be given a choice as to whether or not to spend the money on these things. The cost will be included in the price tag of the device.
It's actually a pretty smart move, and makes Ubuntu more attractive to OEMs.
OEMs and Ubuntu boxsets.
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)
WPA supplicant is a mess. I should be able to type in a network name and passhprase at a prompt, and be done with it.
Isn't this already in Fedora? (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, and Fedora has had 'zero-conf' wireless for some cards for a bit now too.
Sorry, I just don't seem to understand all this Ubunutu fanboyism when so much of what folks say is 'great' about it has already been done, elsewhere. But then it's promulgated like some revelation unique to Canonical's efforts.
Don't get me wrong - Ubuntu has it's place. But, it's not "The Source" itself. There are many, many distros doing new things, breaking ground, developing facets we ALL benefit from. Hoisting one distro up as "the one" only leads to inevitable disappointment.
Re:Finally! (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, the other half of the market system is a legal framework that does not encourage socialism. That is, make producers liable for the products, and prevent the government from limiting those liabilities. Of course, in the name of public safety and stability, there is some benefit to some market meddling. Of course, the problem occurs when government socializes businesses while stil leaving them in large private hands, as has happened this week in the US. The executives reap huge rewards while the taxpayer takes a bath.
So, in this case, there is no simple legal and free way to get a driver for linux, so the market created one, in terms of gray market drivers. The market has also created a 100% above board driver. The only question remains, for a market point of view, is it worthwhile to prosecute those that use the grey market download. Certainly from a socialist point of view it is, because the government will pay the bills, and the right owner will reap the reward. Perhaps from a law and order point of view this is also prudent. But what it comes down to is that patents do not be defended to remain valid, the money lost through these grey downloads are likely not significant, and like MS Windows, the benefit of universal access probably outweighs any issue of lost revenue.
Re:Somebody had to do it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Splorf! When you can get a cheap new DVD player for $20 to $30 at $BIGBOXSTORE, $50 to enable the codec on your computer is a /bit/ excessive.
They're pricing themselves out of the market. If I started feeling guilty about installing ubuntu-restricted-extras and not paying the intellectual-property tax, I might consider paying $10 to $15 to play DVDs and media files, but not $90.
Re:Patent Exhaustion -- continued (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that the makers of a Free Software implementation, like LAME, will not get a license to use the patents because they are not the distributor, EVERYONE who gets it is a distributor. Apple can pay fees based on the number of iPods sold, but with Free Software a license fee for a single unit could be payed, then the recipient of that single unit can copy it indefinetly around the globe without paying anything.
If, on the other hand, the recipient had to pay for the number of copies distributed (and those recipients had to, and so on), then the recipient would be receiving the software without the right to redisribute it (either copied or modified). This violates the GPL's 'liberty or death' clause which says that if the recipient doesn't get all of the rights specified in the license then you're simply not allowed to give it to them.
In other words, nobody can obtain a license, and even if they did they would be prevented from sharing that codec with anyone under similar laws. What this results in is the entire world complaining about codecs and decryption software because America contains some very powerful cretins, along with "sueing everyone" being both a valid career option and a business plan for said cretins.
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)
I recently tried Fluendo's free version and it didn't sound right and seemed to have artifacts. I instead went to pacman and downloaded their mp3 codec and things sounded much better.
Maybe the Fluendo pay version is better than the free one. At any rate, I hope Ubuntu offers good codecs for sale so people still aren't turned off from Linux.
ubuntu playing catchup ? (Score:3, Insightful)
So is it just that ubuntu has woken up that makes this news ?
Re:Finally! (Score:2, Insightful)
>>>Playing DVDs on Linux that required proprietary codecs has been a source of much pain.
This is why I gave-up on proprietary OSes. I enjoyed experimenting with "nonstandard" systems like Commodore, Amiga, and Macintosh back when I was an unemployed student, but now that I'm a fulltime wage slave, I simply lack the free hours. I want my system to just work, and too many times I ran into issues where my Amiga or Mac could not support the latest audio or video downloads.
So in 1998 I gave up & switched to the default standard that nearly-everyone else was using - Windoze.
Re:Finally! (Score:4, Insightful)
The problems experienced can be traced back to the 1913. No, not just since Monday.
Re:Somebody had to do it... (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the fact that the computer costs the same with or without windows means that I didn't pay for windows.
That assertion is just patently false.
If you bought a machine without windows for the same cost, then you paid the OEM for some additional profit/overhead.
If you bought a machine *with* windows for the same cost, then you paid MICROSOFT for WINDOWS.
*Your* money flowed from your credit card, to the OEM's bank, and then on to Microsoft's coffers. It doesn't matter whether you "give a shit" about it. Facts is facts.
Illegal codecs? (Score:1, Insightful)
It may be worth noting that these codecs of which you speak are perfectly legal throughout most of the world.
This is just one of the times I'm proud not to be a US American. (Is there a less-clumsy word for people from the US?)
Re:Finally! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Somebody had to do it... (Score:3, Insightful)
At that point, people distributing Ubuntu to friends need to specifically say that it costs $90.
Those in the know will use the free drivers (and tell their friends where to get them).
Free-as-in-speech software purists need proprietary codecs like a vegan needs a steak-knife, so they have nothing to complain about - unless they think that Joe Potential-Switcher, given the choice between (a) sticking with Windows/Mac or (b) converting their entire media collection to open formats (which you can't do without a codec for the source format anyway) is going to choose (b).
...if you do decide to fork out $90, that isn't a lot if you offset it against the metric shitload of OS and application software you just got for free, and if that includes a nice little something for Canonical on the side then, well, they deserve it.
Re:Finally! (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly, and well said. It's unfortunate that those of us who speak out against software patents are labeled amongst the tin-foil hat socialist crowd that is somehow against inventors, the free market, or demand government intervention (which is what patents are). As you suggested, software for specific purposes is very limited in duration (presumably because it becomes outdated within that time frame). I think patents are a very important protection for tangible inventions, but they're a horrible thing when it comes to software--or formulae, as you stated. As an aside, I love that simplification you offer, because it brings everything to the crux of the matter which is that software patents are oftentimes very narrow in scope and involve either an algorithm or a user interface that is so blatantly obvious, prior art has likely preceded any patent by years!
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)
No that is really really really bad, you now have free Linux and pay Linux. The free Linux will bw see as crippleware and 10 years down half of a Linux system will be closed source paid apps with shinny DRM. This is a dangerous precedent.
And wireless too (Score:4, Insightful)