Tainted

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Tainted

Postby Weatherlawyer » Mar 21st, '14, 00:07

I have been using Linux for several years now but still consider myself a complete novice.
I was looking to load a programme called libdvdcss to help me get rif of a cupboard full of DVDs. What on earth is a tainted repository and what bloody fool had the honour of naming that?

Not exactly a platform designation that will endear itself to old farts like me.
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Re: Tainted

Postby martinw » Mar 21st, '14, 00:20

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Re: Tainted

Postby doktor5000 » Mar 21st, '14, 00:55

That term is commonly used also for the kernel, see e.g. http://www.novell.com/support/kb/doc.php?id=3582750
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Re: Tainted

Postby Weatherlawyer » Mar 21st, '14, 01:06

The Tainted repository includes packages under various licenses, free and nonfree ones, but the main criteria for packages in this repository is that they may infringe patents and copyright laws in some countries in the world (e.g. multimedia codecs needed to play various audio/video files, packages needed to play commercial video DVD… etc); as such the set of the Tainted media is added by default but not enabled by default, i.e. it's completely opt-in; so check your local laws before using packages from this repository.

Guns don't kill epople, motor cars kill people. Software doesn't pirate movies, people pirate movies. I was considerd adult enough to control my sexual behaviour at 16, my alcohol consumption at 18 and I rather think at 60+ I can decide for myslef what I am going to do with software on my computer and for that matter any form of drug the government considers illicit. Prohibition ONLY works for gangsters and the CIA directors who had shares in United Fruit.

Can someone please put stuff like the programme Libdvdcss in the application launcher or do I have to go and get an alternative less nannyish version of operating system?
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Re: Tainted

Postby jkerr82508 » Mar 21st, '14, 02:32

Weatherlawyer wrote: I can decide for myself what I am going to do with software on my computer

That is exactly the choice that Mageia gives you. If you are unconcerned about patent claims, then just enable the tainted repositories and install the software that you want. Would you rather that Mageia make the choice for you? There are people who do not want to use patent-encumbered software. Would you deny them the right to choose?

Incidentally, libdvdcss is not an application and cannot be launched from an application launcher. It is a library of routines that enable video playing applications to read encrypted DVDs.

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Re: Tainted

Postby benmc » Mar 21st, '14, 02:43

You are free, of course, to choose another operating system.

As an aside, Samsung and Apple are still engaged in software patent litigation, so obviously if someones nose has been put out of joint, they are usually free to file suit.

From my understanding, regarding Mageia's position regarding software that may infringe upon the rights of others, is a balanced and well thought-out point of view. You or I are free to add to the supplied operating system at our own risk, any software that falls into patent territory is our concern.
Be aware that many commercial software titles are limited to the territories that they are licensed for, the EULA often prohibits the use of the software in a territory not where it is originally sold off the shelf. That a purchaser chooses to run the software in violation of the EULA is of course the purchasers right. But the purchaser has chosen to violate the EULA , not the Operating System supplier
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Re: Tainted

Postby jkerr82508 » Mar 21st, '14, 03:50

Weatherlawyer wrote: what bloody fool had the honour of naming that?

Like all such decisions in Mageia, the decision about how to handle patent-encumbered software, including the name used for the repositories, was a collective decision, made after an open discussion in which everyone was free to participate. The fact that you do not like the decision that was made does not give you licence to be offensive about the people who give freely of their time and talent to create and maintain Mageia.

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Re: Tainted

Postby benmc » Mar 21st, '14, 05:49

Weatherlawyer wrote:I was looking to load a programme called libdvdcss to help me get rif of a cupboard full of DVDs
.
If the dvds are home-made, e.g., of transfers from a video camera recording, and you are wanting to copy to HDD- go for it.
Commercial dvd's are different.
If your country copyright laws allow, you are free to copy and store those copies of your DVD's how and where as you see fit.
However, at the start of a commercially released DVD, there is usually a copyright notice that prohibits this.
Using a dvd copy programme is obviously in violation of that copyright notice, so personally, I support the Mageia position.
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Re: Tainted

Postby Weatherlawyer » Mar 21st, '14, 12:28

K3b uses transcode to rip video DVDs. Please make sure it is installed.

How do I do that I don't even know what transcode is. In fact a list of programmes available for my delectation written in English not jargon would probably end my days watching videos for some considerable period.

I hate being a lamer. Thanks for sticking with me so far. I got the programme to open as far as the list of chapters and the titles on K3b and an invitation to show files. The invitation to start ripping is greyed out. Obviously waiting for me to change discs to the blank one.... ...is it?

I am afraid it isn't vers obvious what this luser is to do next. I got Dragon Player to run the disc on my computer (which is a first) but there is no sound. So back to the ripper:
"There does not seem to be enough free space in the temporary folder. Write anyway?"
Now why would I write to Temp without knowing there was space for it?
Wouldn't it be better to help me reset or at least check what space was needed?

benmc wrote:You are free, of course, to choose another operating system.
Samsung and Apple are engaged in software patent litigation.

Mageia's position regarding software is a balanced and well thought-out point of view. You are free to add to the supplied operating system at our own risk.
Software that falls into patent territory is our concern.


Surely what happens between the operating system developer and my computer is something that in a free country (i.e. those with socialist tenets as opposed to megalomaniac ones) is something that only concerns the developers and the computer owner?
I may choose to put a gun turret on my car without it affecting the car manufacturer. But the car manufacturer supplies everyone, everywhere with a vehicle capable of wiping out whole families in an instant and nobody give a rats ****.
As for Apple and the other donongoodnicks, their problems could all be settled equably in a very few minutes by killing all the shareholders and directors, their families, their friends and anyone who walked a dog for anyone related to anyone who once met them briefly.
The only thing that can be said for people like that that is that they make better fertiliser than computers or operating systems.

benmc wrote:At the start of a commercially released DVD, there is usually a copyright notice that prohibits this.
Using a dvd copy programme is obviously in violation of that copyright notice, so personally, I support the Mageia position.

That has got absolutely nothing to do with anyone but the person who pirates the copyrighted material and the copyright holder. There is something desperately wrong with a country that allows the population to walk around fully armed at any time (without any small print all over the arms and ammunition, too) because of a few words on a piece of paper written by sensible people, long ago who had no idea how stupid their nation could become.
Meanwhile you can't get to enjoy an evening at home without a reminder that lawyers in many countries are looking at you malevolently.
Why has this plea for help got so bogged down with a discussion of something that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the subject?
Because there are people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates?
How stupid is that?
Can "IT" get sicker?
Add in Walt Disney and Rupert Murdoch. Now that is wrong!
What the hell good did they ever do anyone that we should implicate them in everything we think about?
What kind of a world is that?
My father loved to eat fish but he lost so many friends because of people like the monkeys running empires like Windows and Apple and whatever.. that he couldn't face eating Mackerel. I could never understand how he would eat lobsters and crabs. And I will never understand why any of this aberration is always dragged up in computing circles.
I have two legal copies of an old not absolutely brilliant film called Coach Carter. And now I want to get rid of them. If I had an old dog and I wanted to get rid of it I wouldn't have to look at the writing on a shotgun cartridge before doing so. Would I?
And the same applies if I was choosing to shoot rats or clay pigeons. And it wouldn't help if I did have to read the small print, would it?

Anyway, I don't think I will bother now, t is all just too much work.
Thanks anyway.
Problem shelved.
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