Royalty free gstreamer plug-in

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

>Red Hat has an inconsistent position on patents and source.  For some
>things, the source is stripped of the code (so no more pristine source),
>but for others, the source shipped still includes the problem code (it
>just isn't compiled).
>
>- For MP3, the code is removed.
>
>- OpenSSH has the CSS code removed (which I guess is DMCA related not
>  patent; it is also a pretty lame OpenSSH attempt to make a political
>  "statement" by including undocumented, non-standard, and unneeded
>  "features").
>
>- OpenSSL has numerous patent bits removed from the source.  This is a
>  change; IIRC in the past it was just built without the patented bits
>  enabled (they were still in the source).
>
>- NTFS code remains in the kernel source; the reason cited for not
>  building it is patents.
>
>- Font bytecode interpreter is disabled in freetype but the code remains
>  and the spec file even provides a build option to include it.  From
>  what I understand, it is not enabled due to patents.
>
>Why is it okay to ship the source to some things that are not used for
>patent reasons but not to ship the source to others?
>  
>
Forwarded to the legal contact[1]. Thanks

-- 
Rahul 

[1] http://fedora.redhat.com/About/contact.html