Re: [tlug] 7/10 TLUG Technical Meeting - voice communicationquestions

[Botond Botyanszki <tlug@example.com>]

On Wed, 07 Jul 2004 09:47:52 +0900
"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com> wrote:

>     >> For GnomeMeeting you need a quicknet linejack (what about
>     >> $299.95) in combination with a microtelco account (roughly $.03
>     >> -035/min or so).  Correct?
> 
>     ben> The reason you need the quicknet card is because it has a
>     ben> hardware implementation of the G.723.1 codec, which is
>     ben> patented
> 
> Uh, excuse me?
> 
> GNOME software _depends_ on patented software?
GnomeMeeting is an optional software for gnome and the gnome desktop
doesn't depend on it.
If the G.723.1 codec was implemented you wouldn't have libopenh323 in
debian in the first place. About the implementation of G.723.1, go back
and read his post.

> Tell me it ain't so.  The whole point of _GNU_NOME was to hold the
> line against such backsliding by KDE and Qt!  Surely there are
> alternative codecs?

Just because you couldn't come up with a M-X-make-voip-call you should not
 start bashing gnome.

There are many other libraries and progs that can use patented algorithms
(I'm sure you are using openssl too...)
Free software is about choices and in GnomeMeeting you surely can choose
what codec you want to use (yes, there are alternatives).
Because and additional patented codec is available if you pay money (for
the hardware or the impl), this doesn't make it any worse IMHO.