multimedia licensing

[Rahul Sundaram]

kwhiskers wrote:

> If this is the case, then this development seems dangerous for Linux' 
> long-term existence. Eventually, all countries will pass similar 
> legislation: Russia might join the EU; China is already becoming the 
> world's largest and most powerful industrial producer of consumer 
> goods (albeit likely also the world's largest bootlegger). What then?
>
> It seems to me, the sensible thing is to legeslate open standards and 
> open file formats, to allow user portability, transparency, etc. But 
> how to convince companies that their software should store data in a 
> format that is 100% readable by a competitor's program?

Educate yourself and be a ambassador of unencumbered alternatives for 
multimedia like flac,  Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora

>
> And that brings up another thought: will Linux remain free for the 
> future? 


Yes .


> Already, there are vultures hawking isos burnt to CD and some distros 
> that offer 'premium' versions for pay.


There is nothing wrong with making money out of it.

> Is it only a matter of time before Linux becomes the next Windows, 
> where the consumer must pay an annual update fee in order to stay on 
> top of the innovations?


not when its licensed under the GPL

regards
Rahul