metapackages- Yes , please

[Peter Garrett]

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 00:07:49 +0200
Reinhard Tartler <siretart at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 9/27/05, Peter Garrett <peter.garrett at optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> > > > Please keep in mind that most new users have no idea what, say, gstreamer0.8-mad is, for example. They just want a simple way to play their mp3 collection - or whatever...
> > > >
> > >
> > > And don't care for legal reasons. I know. We as developers cannot
> > > ignore those issues, you know.
> >
> > This is totally *not* what my post says. Nowhere did I suggest that legalities should be ignored.
> 
> I am very sorry if you are feeling attacked by my words, that was in
> no way my intention. You said users just wanted a simple way to play
> their fancy multimedia files. I added that in my opinion many of these
> users don't care about legal issues and get frustrated that they don't
> get this functionality out-of-the-box (i.e. technically: supported in
> main). This is my view of the problem, nothing else. And yes, I was a
> bit in a hurry when I wrote that lines.

No problem :) Thanks for the clarification - and no, I didn't feel personally attacked at all - I thought you misunderstood, but evidently that is not the case :)

> 
> > Are you saying that, for example, gstreamer0.8-mad is illegal in some way?
> 
> gstreamer0.8-mad is a package suitable for mp3 decoding, which is
> patent encumbered. Franhofer is not actively enforcing these patents
> but they could do at any time, if they wanted. Moreover, I heard that
> SuSE removed even mp3 playing functionality for legal reasons, so yes,
> I assume there are legal problems even with mp3 playing in some
> jurisdictions.
> 
> With mp3 encoding it gets even worse, in this case, Fraunhofer is
> actively enforcing its patents, from what I heared. :(

Again, thanks for the clarification.

My essential point, putting aside legal issues, which I acknowledge are important and difficult, was that having apparently "trivial" metapackages (that is, "trivial" from a developer's viewpoint) can make the users' search for what they need easier.

Just a question of naming conventions I suppose, combined with Seveas' original idea. It isn't intuitive for most ordinary mortals to look for "gstreamer-foo" or "libfaad-bar" - or whatever the terms might be in a particular case. They would probably find "multimedia-bleh" or "sound-something", which would make life easier on support channels !

I guess you would agree with that, at least...

"Linux for Human Beings" anyone ? ;-)

Sincerely, 

Peter



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Linux User #343161