Re: ntfs

[Chris Ricker <kaboom gatech edu>]

On Sat, 26 Jul 2003, Robert P. J. Day wrote:

> On Sat, 26 Jul 2003, Daniel Huettl wrote:
> 
> > Please consider including the ntfs module. It is an absolute nuisance to 
> > have to compile it oneself. The module works perfectly well, and people 
> > have been clamouring to have it included for over a year now:
> > 
> >    https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=65749
> 
> one of the comments from a RH person at that bug from last year
> states that it must be "legally possible/sensible" to do so,
> neither of which seems to make much sense.

I think you're misreading that. Read it as "legally possible and legally
sensible". Is it legal to ship that binary? Arguably, yes. Is it a sensible
corporate move to do so? Given the DMCA, etc., no. The driver simply isn't
worth the potential fallout (particularly since it barely works anyway --
potential risk far outweighs potential reward).

Long-term, that's one of the things that projects like fedora and other
community add-on sites are for: adding features RH can't ship for legal 
reasons (ntfs, mp3), won't ship (reiserfs and xfs, apparently), etc.

later,
chris