I think one of the most significant challenges for any free desktop that is trying to reach the "average user" is how to deal with the fact that most people like using computers, tablets, smartphones, etc. to interact with non-free multimedia. Not just viewing movies and listening to music, but also creating content in increasingly collaborative ways. Tools that use non-free technologies like Skype or Vonage are not just popular, but a requirement for many people who pay for such services. How many average people would purchase a device that did not support such tools?
Proprietary companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft coordinate sophisticated agreements with media companies and often go along with nasty DRM agreements required by those who own the rights to popular media. Even some popular artists, like The Beatles, are very controlling about who can access the media they control. If you avoid DRM, you probably have to avoid such popular artists - including pretty much anything released on a DVD. In certain markets, not being able to access non-free media may not be a problem. The device the FedEx employee uses to collect signatures or a Point-of-Sale system might be good examples of devices that do not need much media support. Such markets might be an ideal focus for a free desktop environment that, perhaps naturally, lacks strong DRM support. But, if the "average user" is the target, how does GNOME plan to provide access to non-free multimedia that the average user tends to access and create? Is the community working to make GNOME attractive to some big company that can negotiate the expensive licenses needed to provide access? Or is GNOME focusing on users who do not have an interest in using, accessing or creating non-free media? Is GNOME just waiting until relevant patents expire and these issue hopefully just go away? I always thought that GNOME more appealed to hacker types because hackers tend to be more agreeable to figuring out how to work in a DRM-free environment. For example, a hacker would likely be more willing to rip their audio in OGG format. But this advanced UNIX-hacker type does not seem to be the primary user GNOME is focusing on anymore. Brian On 11/14/12 11:08 PM, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 8:10 AM, Seif Lotfy <s...@lotfy.com <mailto:s...@lotfy.com>> wrote: Quoting Stormy Peters comment on a recent blog post concerning GNOME: " We haven’t shared our vision or our roadmap for the future. Where’s the product going? What problem are we trying to solve? How are we going to do that?" Good question. As a member of the board of directors I can't really answer this question at the moment either, without having to organize my thoughts. So many different point of views and ideas in the community that are not well discussed. The first thing that pops up in my head is GNOME OS. But then I am kinda lost. Maybe this is something we need to discuss here on the mailing list. Lets try to answer those 3 questions. What about one sentence per question for a start? I am avoiding a blog post since I am not sure its the best way to reach most of our contributors. For me, it's our byline right? A distraction free desktop. Our designs are all based on being able to write a desktop that allows us to get our work done, multi-task with whatever interruptions that we have in our daily life. Where are we going? Are you talking about development or user land? What do other people think? sri Cheers Seif _______________________________________________ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org <mailto:foundation-list@gnome.org> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list _______________________________________________ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
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