future solution to multimedia woes.

[Adamant1988]

I'm curious what everyone thinks would be the best long term solution for multimedia in Ubuntu.

Personally, I think the solution lies in Ubuntu's popularity, and in an company like system76 preinstalling compatibility for the filetypes for a fee , of course the solutions would have to be legal... but you might find Ubuntu preinstalled on desktops with included DVDplayers and all the fixins...


What do you all think? I know that Ubuntu will never include these things oob so, but they're important enough, so what should be the solution if/when Ubuntu becomes more popular and more widespread.

[fabiand]

Hey,

a solution might be, that you "buy" a linux distro wich supports all this, as far as i know, ubutnu is planning something like this ...
That you pay a fee and get all plugins and propiertary apps.

[G Morgan]

Doesn't the MP3 patent run out in like 3 years anyway. When we start getting pre-installed machines countries that don't allow insane software patents can pre-install LAME and such. The other option is bringing oggs in via attrition.

[adamkane]

It is a neverending struggle between new proprietary formats and the development of open-source alternatives and solutions.

The solutions involve governments and educational institutions moving to open formats, and consumers being made aware of the benefits of open standards and formats.

It's a sad commentary that the whole mass of humanity is in a pitched batted against a single company.

[Pekkalainen]

How about start DEMANDING free formats and dont use the proprietary crap?

[prizrak]

There are couple of things being/need to be done.
1) Heavy marketing of FOSS solutions (applies to everything not just codecs).
2) Reverse engineering, Gstreamer reverse engineered .wma, .divx and some other formats.
3) We need more FOSS solutions (for instance there is no good video codec, OGM is just a container I think Theora might be the divx equivalent for Linux but it's barely used.)

[TravisNewman]

the only long term solution is propagation of open formats. We shouldn't have to have these issues at all. Preinstalling support for proprietary media formats is just a band-aid.

[djsroknrol]

the only long term solution is propagation of open formats. We shouldn't have to have these issues at all. Preinstalling support for proprietary media formats is just a band-aid.

Here, here...