Fedora Desktop future- RedHat moves

[Francis Earl]

It has everything to do with legalities, as the source code for the
encoders/decoders is available.

On Tue, 2008-04-22 at 18:36 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-04-22 at 15:57 -0700, Francis Earl wrote:
> > Yes, despite it's legal ramifications... far better to risk your company
> > to appease users. It's not like it's not available for Fedora, but Red
> > Hat doesn't risk the future of the company on it.
> > 
> > Google for 'Microsoft billion mp3'
> > 
> > Mark is rich, but that's about 3 times his worth right there... he isn't
> > licensing MP3 or any other codec for his distro, Microsoft just licensed
> > it from the wrong people.
> > 
> > Now wonder consider ffmpeg for instance has Apple codecs, mpg2/4 and
> > Microsoft codecs just to name a few, and ask yourself whether it's smart
> > to distribute this stuff.
> > 
> > Only reason he gets away with it is because Ubuntu represents such a low
> > market share that it's not worth it today.
> 
> AFAIK he doesn't "distribute" it (for some meaning of "distribute"),
> just makes it easy to get. I may be wrong (and I've no interest in
> arguing about it), but I think the Fedora rationale for not doing the
> same thing has more to do with avoiding lockin than avoiding lawsuits.
> 
> poc
> 
> > On Tue, 2008-04-22 at 18:08 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2008-04-22 at 14:29 -0700, Francis Earl wrote:
> > > > The only real benefits of Ubuntu are proprietary drivers by default, and
> > > > easier access to patent encumbered codecs... catering to users so much
> > > > is why Ubuntu is so popular... no other reason.
> > > 
> > > How dare they offer something that users want :-)
> > > 
> > > poc
> > > 
> > 
>