Why is Fedora a multimedia disaster? - Here is why.

Nicu Buculei nicu_fedora at nicubunu.ro
Wed Apr 18 13:16:03 UTC 2007


Dotan Cohen wrote:
> 
> Very common workflows (or playflows) include the following:
> 
> 1) Web browsing: the viewing of HTML pages
> 2) Email: the downloading, display, and sending of electronic mail
> 3) Chatting: communicating with other humans via one (or more) or the
> following chat protocols: yahoo, msn, icq
> 4) Listening to audio: the playback of mp3 files
> 5) Watching video: the playback of mpg, avi, and wmv files
> 6) Viewing pictures: the display of jpeg files
> 7) Word Processing: creating, editing, and display of text documents
> in txt, rtf, and doc formats
> 8) Spreadsheet: creating, editing, and display of spreadsheets in excel 
> format
> 
> I'm sure there's more that I missed. But these are examples of the
> most basic functions that any computer (and operating system) are
> expected to perform. If an OS cannot do any of these, then it is not
> adequate for general use. Fedora is thus bound by law to be inadequate

Your judgment is flawed: Windows Vista can't do a lot of those tasks out 
of the box and need additional software which have to be downloaded or 
purchased separately (to pick from your list: spreadsheets, video files 
with certain codecs or in certain formats, some chat protocols).

You are also unfair with your criteria, the conditions are formulated to 
fit your predefined conclusion:
- for chat you request "one or more of the" (BTW, you forgot 
Jaber/Google Talk from the list)
- for video you request all formats (mpg, avi, wmv)
- for audio you request one specific format, MP3, but forget about AAC, 
WAV, OGG, Audio CD - those are also audio (note that Fedora 7 should 
have preconfigured OOTB a few OGG internet radio stations).

> for general use out of the box. That is easily fixed by those in the
> know, but not by a passer-by who downloads the distro (or LiveCD) and
> plays around with it.

This could be said also for any other operating system

> Again I ask: to whom is the official LiveCD aimed at? I do not think
> that Redhat can (legally) produce a LiveCD suitable for the general
> public. Rather, this is better left to the community, who are not
> bound by such restrictive laws, and can legally create and distribute
> such a disk. The only question for Redhat is should Redhat allow the
> community to use the Fedora name on the disk.

There was a lot of talk about what can be a derived distro and still 
keep the Fedora name, one of the ideas was that it have to be a subset 
of Core + Extras, but I don't remember the conclusion.

You know, it can have a different name and put on the disk "gOldSense, 
based on Fedora" - you know, as gNewSense is a freer version of Ubuntu, 
gOldSense could be a less free version of Fedora :p

-- 
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