Codec Buddy misleading.

[Bastien Nocera]

On Mon, 2007-11-12 at 11:39 -0500, Paul Wouters wrote:
> On Mon, 12 Nov 2007, Bastien Nocera wrote:
> 
> > > However, I am still of the opinion that non-us people shouldn't be misled
> > > to buy things that they're fully entitled to from free and available
> > > software, just because of the main location of Fedora's main contributor
> > > (Red Hat). Which is why I think the Codec Buddy feature suggesting
> > > non-free software should be removed. Americans illegally installing
> > > livna rpms is not Red Hat's problem. Europeans mistakingly paying for
> > > non-free software is an issue for the Fedora Community.
> >
> > That is utter crock. If you know about the repositories, you probably
> > already have the packages installed already, or that window would remind
> > you to install them. If you don't know about them, we can't actually
> > point you at them.
> 
> Yes, we agree that people who know about this will ignore the new codec
> buddy. Or rephrased, "informed people won't accept the misinformation
> of needing to pay for codecs" (or if they are US users, will know that
> they can steal them).
> 
> It is the non-informed user that is harmed by the codec buddy. It just so
> happens that it only harms non-US citizens, so this solution is deemed
> "not a problem" for Red Hat because they are a US company. That is the
> essence of the problem here.

Feel free to propose changes to the warning popup so that European users
aren't confused.

> > The bottom line is that people who didn't know how to get playback
> > software for their videos and music will now know how to, or at least
> > have a way to.
> 
> So you are also in favour of not telling people about free health care,
> as long as they know how to find a doctor they can pay? That's really a
> non argument. Red Hat is basically ripping of non-US citizens via a
> business partner.

They're not a business partner, and Red Hat isn't making any profit from
it. I would also avoid big brush-stroke comparisons as well. A 30-euro
one-off payment for a European user that can afford a computer is hardly
akin to having to pay for your healthcare.

> > In fact, most of this software and the way it made it in Fedora was done
> > in Britain and Spain. So I'm not buying the "martyr from Europe who
> > shelled out 30 euros" story.
> 
> Obviously in cooperation and under ultimate decisions of releng and its
> lawyers. So this argument also makes no sense.

Lawyers didn't come into questions, because we weren't doing anything
legally questionable, and the only people with a word into adding the
feature were FESCo, for which you can run yourself.