Usual "forbidden items" explanation

[Tim]

Tim:
>> I've never got the applications that FC4 tried to use to play a DVD,
>> by default, to work.

James Wilkinson:
> Not surprising -- they're not meant to work for most DVDs. Supplying
> the code to read most DVD's CSS may well be a violation of the USA's
> DCMA, and the MPEG2 encoding is patented. So Fedora *can't* legally
> supply open-source programs to play most DVDs.

I already knew about that, but what doesn't make sense is that:

 a. There's a default program to play something that it can't play.
 b. That it doesn't manage to play non-protected DVDs.

If it could play non-protected discs, e.g. my own recordings, then I can
see the sense in having a default player, but it doesn't.

-- 
(Currently running FC4, occasionally trying FC5.)

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