MEPIS may be going Ubuntu

[Paul Sladen]

On Mon, 13 Feb 2006, Randy Gloden wrote:
> I will get pricing and such, though I recognize the futility of the 
> effort.  The only way to do this and keep everything "Free as in Beer", 
> would be to strike a deal to license it for the whole community. 
> Oh well, I give up.

I don't think you should give up.  Every time the issue gets raised it is
another nail in the coffin (or a feather on the camel's back).

Even if _you_ might not expect a change-of-tune, the person asking *next
year* might get that positive result.  Eventually the world will catch up.
If you think back 10years ago to when crypto could not be exported from the
United States ... now there is an exception for crypto provided *with
source-code* (aka Free Software).

At the moment the company with "the most bases covered" with respect to
codecs is Linspire, primarily helped through access to discounted codecs
thanks to terms of their settlement [that they can't talk about] with
Microsoft (over the term 'Windows').

ImpiLinux (who Mark recently invested in) are another company who've stated
that they intend to release a paid-for product with various value-added
services, such as legally-integrated proprietary codecs:

  http://www.impi.org.za/

This keep Ubuntu Free and means that you can get an Ubuntu-based product
that should work out of the box in a suitably legal way.

	-Paul
-- 
Britain is just cold, in a pesky way.  Lincoln, GB