When can we see the inclusion of Video Players for RedhatFedora?

[Chris Kloiber]

On Fri, 2004-05-14 at 23:52, Guy Fraser wrote:
> Alan Cox wrote:
> 
> >On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 12:15:40AM +0200, Martin Stricker wrote:
> >  
> >
> >>So what about moving to a place with more reasonable laws? This is
> >>becomming annoying - many other distros have video players on board.
> >>    
> >>
> >I would expect that to change. SuSE is now Novell owned so the moment
> >Novells legal team finish a patent audit there is bound to be fallout.
> >
> >If you want truely free video then help finish Theora.
> >  
> >
> Legal Smegol. ;-)
> 
> Does any one remember the days, when RH used to provide a disk with 
> "Commercial and Demo Applications". When you installed the app, there 
> was a notice informing you that you had to get a license.
> 
> Why don't we switch from yum to apt, install synaptic and then have 
> a configuration option or preference option that allows people to 
> access "commercial or unsupported applications" and it enables non
> RH repositories with these other apps.
> 
> Synaptic is a great package manager, and it not only allows you to 
> update applications you have installed, but it also allows you to 
> install any application from the configured repositories.
> 
> As long as RH does not have any of the apps at issue on their site 
> and do not allow access to such software by default, I can't see 
> how making it easier for people to get the said software could be 
> a problem for RH. Maybe someone with legal knowledge could comment.

IANAL, but...

Times have changed. Red Hat could conceivably be held liable for
*linking* to patent-encumbered or copyright-infringing works. These
legal quagmires have not been probed deeply, and I don't believe Red Hat
wants to be a sacrificial guinea pig. Yes, it sucks to be US.

FYI, Red Hat Enterprise Linux does still have such a CD (in physical
media kits) because the number of copies can theoretically be controlled
and the licenses paid for. No those disks don't contain mplayer or xine
or mp3 support. More like acroread and IBMJava2-JRE/SDK. I think
possibly the old Real Player 8 as well. I haven't looked lately, not
terribly exciting stuff.

-- 
Chris Kloiber