[Mplayer-cvslog] CVS: homepage/src news.src.en,1.27,1.28

[Arpi of Ize]

Update of /cvsroot/mplayer/homepage/src
In directory mail:/var/tmp.root/cvs-serv12905

Modified Files:
	news.src.en 
Log Message:
burn 'em all!


Index: news.src.en
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/mplayer/homepage/src/news.src.en,v
retrieving revision 1.27
retrieving revision 1.28
diff -u -r1.27 -r1.28
--- news.src.en	6 Aug 2003 11:34:01 -0000	1.27
+++ news.src.en	6 Aug 2003 14:53:16 -0000	1.28
@@ -1,6 +1,83 @@
 <!-- content begin -->
 <font class="bigheader">
 	<br>
+	<a name="debianandsusesux">
+	2003.08.06, Wednesday :: Debian follows SuSE? Please do NOT package crippled MPlayer!
+	</a>
+	<br>
+</font>
+<font class="header">
+	posted by A'rpi</a><br>
+</font>
+<font class="text">
+	<br>
+	According to the latest 
+	<A HREF="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2003/31/">
+	DWN (Debian Weekly News)</A>, Debian people are again
+	considering packaging MPlayer. Since they are even more
+	paranoid than SuSE, they will "of course" cripple it by removing
+	most of the native codecs (starting with libavcodec) and also most
+	files with no nice GPL header included, rendering the player unusable.<br>
+	<br>
+	<center>
+	<a href="http://www.suse.de/us/private/products/suse_linux/i386/packages_personal/mplayer.html">
+	<img src="../images/susewarning.png"></center><br>
+	</a>
+	<br>
+	I think that including an unusable build of an application is even
+	worse than not packaging it at all. It is not only valueless for the
+	users (they will have to remove it and compile the source of the
+	original version), but it gives the application a bad reputation,
+	i.e. advertising it as a useless player being incapable of even
+	playing a simple small file, or an unencrypted DVD (with AC3 sound)... 
+	Unfortunately most users won't notice the small comments in
+	distribution specific files (like README.SuSE, or README.Debian) and
+	will tell their friends, magazines (which occasionally write
+	distro reviews) and post on portals/forums that it is a very
+	bad, broken, unusable application.<br>
+	<br>
+	We keep receiving bug reports from users telling us MPlayer on SuSE
+	is unable to play file XYZ but for example his friend can play the
+	same file on Red Hat.  It's boring to explain to them over and over
+	again, that SuSE (and soon Debian) comes with a crippled MPlayer, and
+	they have to completely delete the package, and compile it from the
+	original source, if they want to play any files...<br>
+        <br>
+	Note, that they also patch MPlayer code to hell, resulting in new bugs
+	and side-effects we are unable to reproduce (with the original source).
+	They should send the patches to us, so we can review and apply the
+	correct fixes and tell them about the problems with the rest.
+	<br>
+	I (A'rpi) want to ask all of those distributions to consider
+	dropping MPlayer packages completely instead of shipping unusable
+	crippled files! Our motto: if you can't do it right, you better
+	don't do it at all! Users can still download the sources and
+	compile them at their own responsibilty. We do know the legal issues
+	well, but since the whole multimedia industry is completely covered by
+	various patents, it's <I>impossible</I> to create a decent
+	<I>free</I> multimedia player without breaking most of these
+	patents.  I'm even considering patenting my A-V sync algorithms used
+	in MPlayer G2, to prevent unwanted crippled distribution of the
+	next generation code, but I hope they will recognize their fault in
+	time, and I won't have to do so.
+	<br>
+</font>
+
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+
+<font class="bigheader">
+	<br>
 	<a name="g2pre39update">
 	2003.08.06, Wednesday :: MPlayer G2 pre-39 update
 	</a>