AN interesting new Linux project was released last week. Omega 10 cuts through the old debate about free/proprietary software with a solution I am sure many will find appealing - and just as many will abhor.

But first, some background. The Fedora project is well known for its uncompromising stance on software which is patent-encumbered or proprietary: if it fits either of those definitions, it does not get into Fedora. Neither will the Fedora developers help their users include software which falls into either category.
In some ways this is an admirable, ethical stance but to those who are new to Linux in general and Fedora in particular, it seems baffling and unhelpful.

These are the people who, having taken the bold step to convert from Windows or Mac OS, find themselves unable to do all the things they previously took for granted without having to tangle with multimedia codec installations.

A similar thing happened to me in my early days of using Linux: Why was this distribution thought of so highly when I could not listen to my (legally owned) music nor view half of the things I wished to see on the internet? With Fedora 10 now at beta stage, this thorny issue has been tackled by the Red Hat community engineer behind the Fedora games and Fedora Xfce media spins, Rahul Sundaram.