mp3 help...

[William Hooper]

Ricky Boone said:
>>> 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.
>

Sigh.  "Everyone else does it" is not a valid legal defense.  If you use
the things in the MP3 patent for commercial use, you are required to pay
royalties.  The GPL doesn't allow restrictions on use via patents.  All
"GPL" MP3 software is not GPL compatible.

Next argument, "why doesn't Red Hat write a non-GPL player".  Because Red
Hat believes in open source and Ogg is already there.

Next argument, "but that doesn't work for my MP3 player".  Sorry.  Feel
free to write your own MP3 software, under a license that can co-exist
with the patent, without using any of the existing GPL code.  It's still
not going to get shipped by Red Hat.

I'm sure there are some arguments that I forgot... as someone else said,
I'm sure they are already in the archives.

--
William Hooper