What are consequences of "merger necessitates removal of ... packages due to licensing issues"

[Randall J. Parr]

I received the email announcement.

I have read every page at fedora.redhat.com

I have found no clarification about just what the implication is of the 
following statement from fedora.us and similar statements at 
fedoda.redhat.com

* This merger necessitates the removal of certain problematic packages
due to licensing issues.


Does this mean that we will no longer be able to go to Fedora to pickup 
the MP3, mplayer, etc. packages which have not been included in recent 
Red Hat releases because of potential licensing problems.

I am not one who complained or had a problem with Red Hat taking this 
stand BUT I was very, very glad to able to go to Fedora and download 
versions of these added packages that would work with a standard 
install. I HAD high hopes the growth of Fedora would lead to a much, 
much easier to use combination RH[L] + Fedora.

I am very concerned these vague statements mean that I will be forced, 
once more, to get these added packages from special purpose, limited, 
repositories which force me to particular non-standard configurations 
(must have ALSA, etc.) and/or back to trying to figure out how to pull 
together all the source, build it, etc.

I have only recently, through Fedora, been able to *easily* get various 
sound and video apps working on my RH8 and RH9 workstations. In large 
part because I could apt/yum apps built to work with my standard RH 
installs.

I am also concerned that this "open" project has made only these vague 
statements. This seems like a pretty major point and one which you'all 
should be up front about.

R.Parr, RHCE
Temporal Arts