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Comment Re:Riding coattails! (Score 1) 333

> If you need permission to use it, is it really open? I think that's the main point people seem to disagree on here.

In the context "Open" means you are free to read the standard, inspect (and use) the source of the reference implementation and even implement and distribute your own implementation. However at some stage you will most likely have to pay a licence fee if you are distributing h264 encoded videos or a implementation of the h264 codec.

If there was never any chance of attracting a licensing fee then it would be "Free" (as in beer and as in possibly speech).

Comment Re:Good ideas never die, they just rebrand (Score 1) 265

If it gets the graphics card vendors to pay attention to the 2D API's again and improve support, then Hell, yes I'm all for it. Even on XOrg the graphics card vendors ignore the 2D graphics acceleration API's these days with the obsession with 3D. If you are lucky they will accelerate them indirectly through OpenGL. There is a reason why the open source XOrg drivers are generally faster at 2D graphics than the proprietary ones.

Operating Systems

A GNU/Linux Distro Needing Windows To Install? 174

dgun writes "I recently put together a new PC. When I purchased the motherboard, I noticed that it came with an instant-on OS, a small GNU/Linux distro called Splashtop. I assumed that the OS was on a ROM chip on the motherboard. To my great annoyance, when I tried to boot to this OS, a message said that it was not installed. It turns out that motherboard comes with an install disk for this GNU/Linux OS — that you can only run from Windows, to install Splashtop on the hard drive. First of all, doesn't installing it on the hard drive defeat the point of having an instant-on OS? If I wanted to dual-boot a small GNU/Linux OS, there are plenty that I could choose from. Second, if distributing GPL'ed software by means that completely preclude it from being used without Windows is not a violation of the GPL, should it not be?"

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