This is the digital image era
These days, on good old usenet, you can read things such as:
"You've got to see this, it's a real laugh!"
"Now, if that's not injustice"
or
"Take this into consideration..."
Etc. Follows a video. Video is more and more a part of the internaut's
everyday life. YouTube is this year's new phenomenon and, in Quebec,
young people like to watch "Les têtes à claques". Parents watch
movies on DVD, etc. This is the digital image era.
Still, most Linux distro developers, who offer the Word, Excel and
Access "codecs", for some reason unknown to me, refuse to offer
MPlayer with all the codecs. They say that proprietary formats must
not be encouraged. The problem is, whereas there are non-proprietary
formats for text, spreadsheets and databases, there are absolutely
none for video. (As we all know, ogg is only an encapsulation.) And,
even if there was a non-proprietray format, there would be no way to
impose it with, after 15 years of development, 0.35% of the
internauts using Linux(1).
(1) <http://marketshare.hitslink.com/
report.aspx?qprid=2&qpmr=15&qpdt=1&qpct=3&qptimeframe=M&qpsp=96>
Of course, we understand that developers don't want to get sued for
providing proprietary codecs. But why don't they care about Word
codecs, then? What are the changes that Microsoft, Apple or RealMedia
will go after any distro developer... instead of Hungary-based
MPlayer and make all governments very aware of the stakes? What if
only ONE format proprietor, say MPlayer, decided not to sue, wouldn't
his format be driven to the front scene?
No company will sue distro developers. Not a chance. And Linux without
video is bound for ghettoization. That's what some developers figured
out. PCLinuxOS, Vector, Linux Mint -- there must be others -- now
offer all the codecs.
If Knoppix doesn't offer the codecs -- not scripts to get the codecs,
the codecs! -- from now on, it will be a developers' only
distribution and IMO will soon fall into irrelevance. If there's not
enough space to fit the codecs on the CD, space must be found. OOo
could be replaced by AbiWord or KWord, whatever. One CD could be
issued for developers with compiler and diagnostic tools, another for
the general public.
I voiced these concerns to Klaus on January 29th and didn't get an
answer. So I repeat them publicly here, hoping for some support that
will help preserve Knoppix's notoriety. I believe notoriety is
important. Otherwise, it's very easy to lose interest in a project.
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