[Techtalk] No DVDs for Linux?

[Mary]

On Wed, Nov 30, 2005, The Gasman wrote:
> Article
> 
> http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/archive/garfinkel.txt

At present, yes, there is no US-legal software for viewing most
commercial DVDs with Linux, because they are encrypted and the industry
refuses to provide the algorithm and keys to Free Software developers
(and typically they want a lot of money for it, which isn't something
that features hugely in FOSS development).

The algorithm and keys were hacked to produce CSS which you can download
from various places (it's usually known as libdvdcss), but which is
illegal in many countries because it is unauthorised copy protection
circumvention. Major distributions do not distribute it although Ubuntu
at least hosts a wiki page giving the general outline of what to do to
install it: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RestrictedFormats

I have heard of at least one company that was hoping at some time in the
future to produce a US-legal DVD viewer for Linux. It would need to be at
least partially closed source. I won't say more because I don't know
whether that plan is still on the cards and whether or not the plan is
in confidence.

There are several other formats that major distributions won't have
software to play by default, usually due to software and algorithm
patents. These include MP3 and many video codecs. This has been the
reason for the development of open and hopefully non-infringing audio
and video encodings by the OGG people: http://www.xiph.org/ This hasn't
been done for DVDs because DVD are physical objects distributed by
commercial interests: there's no interest in a free standard because it
would make copying easier.

Do you have a particular question about DVD playing under Linux? It's
generally better when you email this list to ask a specific question
or otherwise try and spark a technical discussion: it's a discussion
list, not a list for random link sharing.

-Mary