Re: why not replace individual programs?

[Goswin Brederlow <goswin.brederlow@student.uni-tuebingen.de>]

>>>>> " " == Christian Surchi <christian@firenze.linux.it> writes:

     > On Sat, Jun 10, 2000 at 06:30:10PM +0200, David N. Welton
     > wrote:
     ...
     > Maybe popularity-contest could help us. We know that pine and
     > netscape are very important. Mozilla exists, but what about
     > pine? It si possible to "muttify" pine, but is this enough?

Is popularity-contest in any task package? It should be installed (or
the user should be queried if its ok to be installed) on mail capable
systems. Far to less users know of it I think.

     > Here a list of non-free software and possibile free
     > alternatives:

     > * acroread -> xdpf or xpdf-i
Not yet.

     > * pgp -> gnupg (even if to handle older keys we need idea and
     >   rsa modules that are not free)
Isn't the patent running out soon?

     > * application made with xforms: xfmail -> there is archimedes,
     > clone in gtk, but not usable now
anyone using it? What does the popularity contest say about it?

     > lyx -> ?
klyx?

     > * mpeg players: we have smpeg-gtv, so can we avoid ucbmpeg or xanim?
I've used mpeg_encode regulary in the lost months. Just for that
ucbmpeg is needed.

     > * other video players, I think no alternatives, only xanim with its
     > modules
xanim is free for non-commercial purposes, too bad.
One could write a free clone that can use the same modules, but the
codecs would still be non-free, unless you get the patent holders to
make them free.

     > * xv: do alternative viewer make what xv does? gtksee, gqview,
     > imagemagick 

All make less, some make more (like transparency). I allways wanted to
have a replacement thats fully free, but I can use xv for free, so why
bother. Thats one of the programs I would write, if non-free would
disapear.

     > Then we should avoid gif and tiff, or we will need
     > gimp-nonfree.
How long till gif becomes free?

     > What about mp3 player? What is the legal situazion for them?
encoder that use the acustical model fall under a patent and without
it the sound is different (worse quality). Players might be free I think.


As a conclusion one can only say, we need non-free.

MfG
	Goswin