[LAU] ffmpeg or libav

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Sun, 13 Jan 2013 10:13:55 +0100, Dan MacDonald <allcoms at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> [snip]
> you are free to use Ubuntu, Red Hat or another
> distro that is more open to non-free or coryright software.

And we are free to compile software ourself.

> It's Debian's social contract that also stops stuff like the Amazon  
> spyware
> making its way into the Debian repos along with the fact its not run by a
> corporation which definitely makes if different from Ubuntu and even more
> so the Apple and Google app stores.

For me one good reason to think about switching back from Ubuntu to  
Debian, but I still wait, to see which distro will solve some upstream  
issues. At the moment a lot of software I used for years is completely  
broken for Ubuntu. Perhaps I'll use Arch with systemd in the future, I  
dropped Arch when it stopped beeing a rolling release, IOW when they  
switched to systemd.

> There are web pages dedicated to the underhand, often criminal tactics  
> that
> have been employed by MS and Apple over the decades yet I know of no such
> list of nasties for Debian or any other community distro other than the
> usual whines of disgruntled users which you get with any OS. Some of you
> may not like Debian but they are certainly not in the same league as MS  
> for
> nastiness by any stretch of the imagination

Ubuntu seems to do a step into this direction, OTOH since I won the iPad2  
I experienced infamies that are completely no gos. I don't know current  
Windows, but at least old Microsoft wasn't that evil as Apple is. I never  
ever would buy something from Apple, btw. I don't buy, but anyway got  
issues with this evil click and buy crime and to use the iPad users are  
forced to register with a valid plastics. +1000000000 for all free OS. If  
people wish to register as e.g. a Linux user, they are free to do it  
without a plastics and I'm free to completely not register.

No, I'm not migrating to FreeBSD ;), but if something should be fishy with  
Linux, in my case it's a RME cards that isn't good enough supported for  
Linux, we still can try other *NIX. We not only have the freedom to switch  
distros or to switch to other *NIX that are close to Linux, we also could  
maintain or at least help to maintain packages. The non-free software  
issue IMO isn't a real problem, because we easily can add repositories.  
Switching for audio work to another *NIX might be not the smartest idea,  
but switching the distro is easy to do, as long as the Linux user doesn't  
place value on hype, IOW "distro A is better as distro B and this will be  
valid for ever and if distro A should ever become less good, than all  
other distros must become more less good". We are not married with a  
distro and are allowed to have fun with every distro ;).

Regards,
Ralf

-- 
FreeBSD 9.1-RELEASE amd64