mp3 help...

[Ricky Boone]

>> It isn't a copyright issue, it is a patent infringement issue,...

Sorry, my mistake.

>> and
>> anyone that distributes infringing software can be sued.  This means Red
>> Hat (as the primary distributor) as well as all the Red Hat mirrors
>> could be sued for distributing unlicensed MP3 software if MP3 software
>> was included in the distribution.

If that's the case, why aren't other distributions, such as Mandrake,
SuSE, etc., removing MP3 support like RH is?  It looks like this is a moot
issue, but it seems that there really isn't much concern from the rest of
the Linux community concerning MP3 patent infrigement on this level.

> Aa I understand it, the only time when distributing MP3 codecs is an
> issue is if they are part of a product that is being sold, if, like XMMS
> and winamp the product is distributed for free then there is no problem
> with including MP3 functionality, so while there is some ambiguity
> whether Red Hat could include MP3 players Fedora shouldn't have a
> problem, I could be wrong though

That was my understanding of it.

My biggest beef with it is why are other distro's "getting away with it",
while if I choose to stick with RH or Fedora, I have to go out and bypass
their stock RPM's?