on your average Linux-based OS that require "enormous, duplicated effort by each individual who wishes to install" it You've obviously never had to watch an ordinary, non-technical but scarily intelligent human being going through the frustration of trying to install libdvdcss2 on her machine. I'm sure more than a millisecond's thought would throw up many more examples. But that will do for now. Re: @Pete : Divide and conquer &gt; I've done this any number of time on any number of distros and there's the clue. We aren't talking about the self-selected collection of uber-geeks who frequent El Reg. We're talking about normal people who don't know, care or feel it's polite to ask them if they're running Debian, SuSE, Centos or any of the million other none-quite-the same distros. As for whether it's i386 or 64 bit? the blank look you get could swallow entire civilisations. That people who can do this with ease can only scoff and look down upon those who can't is exactly the problem with GPL software and is the clearest reason why it will never be a usable solution for the "other 99%" Re: @Pete : Divide and conquer Bullshit. Utter and total bullshit. You go into your repository (that's the app centre for the braincell challenged and unimaginative of you), select libdvdcss and, er, hit "install". Oh my gosh, how much of a geek do you need to be to do that. How did anyone without a degree in rocket science ever work