> It's a fairly well balanced article that unfortunately also highlights 2 of
> the follies of ubuntu, debian and a lot of distributions that never include
> flash and mp3 playing out of the box.
Actually, Debian does include a Flash player out of the box (just not
the proprietary one).
As for MP3, they can't distribute it without risking a lawsuit because
of software patents on the algorithms used (this is not just
a theoretical risk: several (free software and free hardware) compagnies
have been served a cease&desist order in this respect; smaller
distributions can usually get away with it because the patent holders
apparently don't bother suing them). Arguably, the software patent may
not be valid (there are good signs indicating that if it gets all the
way up to the US supreme court, such a patent might not be considered as
admissible, just like most software patents actually), but nobody
involved has the money to go that far.
Do you consider it a folly of Microsoft not to include an office suite
"out of the box" in its OS?
Stefan
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