Here are some of my ideas for Fedora 8 and Fedora 9

Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com
Fri Jul 6 16:20:29 UTC 2007


David Boles wrote:
>>>>    What is unlawful about VLC? If your expressing the Microsoft 
>>>> position I don't think it would stand up in court.
>>> I understand In some juristictions (probably the US amongst others) some
>>> of the codec algorithms normally included in vlc cannot be legally used
>>> without the payment of royalties to the patent holders. 
>>
>> I think there would be an interesting legal argument that nearly all 
>> potential users have already paid the relevant patent royalties 
>> indirectly in the form of drivers and other software provided by the 
>> hardware vendors of the devices in question (and included in the cost), 
>> or in the copy of Windows they were essentially forced to buy with the 
>> computer.  Since they have paid to use the covered algorithms and since 
>> patents cover the process not specific instances, they should be 
>> permitted to use a version of it that actually works.  Of course I don't 
>> want to spend my own money to test this argument...
> 
> FYI - All of the codecs are not supplied by Microsoft in Windows either.
> Only the ones that they license for their bundled software. The Windows
> Media Player is an example.
> 
> Others can be added if needed or come with other media software that is
> *bought and paid for by you*. And they can provide the codecs because they
> pay a license fee.

The question is, how many times do you have to pay for the right, for 
example, to play a dvd?

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com




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