The Multimedia Question

[Max Spevack]

Before we can do stuff with a feature like Codec Buddy, the Fedora Board 
needs to reaffirm its larger strategy about Multimedia.

Givens:

1) Fedora is Free by default, and always must be.

2) If people want to add anything non-Free to Fedora, they must do so in 
a way that is legal for them.

3) Fedora must abide by US laws, as Red Hat is a US company.


What follows:

4) To what extent is it appropriate for hooks or other "stuff that makes 
it easier for someone to do non-free stuff like CodecBuddy" to exist in 
Fedora?  We need to decide on this from a philosophical standpoint. 
The lawyers will help us with the legal standpoint.

5) Acknowledge that people can use the Fedora base as a starting point 
for a derivative work that potentially includes stuff that can't be 
included in the United States, or in the official version of Fedora.

6) Acknowledge that just because something is illegal in the US, it 
isn't illegal everywhere in the world.  Help people use Fedora, remix 
Fedora, and redistribute Fedora, in ways that are Legal for them and 
acceptable to Red Hat as the legal entity that controls Fedora.

-- 
Max Spevack
+ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/MaxSpevack
+ gpg key -- http://spevack.org/max.asc
+ fingerprint -- CD52 5E72 369B B00D 9E9A 773E 2FDB CB46 5A17 CF21