What next?

[Denis Leroy]

Paul A. Houle wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Jun 2005 22:24:26 -0500, W. Michael Petullo <mike at flyn.org>  
> wrote:
> 
>>
>> - Bugzilla #158657 Build totem's Mozilla plugin
>> - Bugzilla #127537 Free software applet viewer plugin
>> - Free software flash viewer?
>>
> 
>     I hate to say it,  but intellectual property restrictions make the  
> multimedia software shipped with Fedora a joke,  which I end up 
> scrapping  and replacing with stuff that plays media I get off the street.
> 
>     Ogg is great,  for instance,  and I rip CDs with ogg,  but if I want 
> to  listen to 99% of the audio streams out there,  I need mp3,  and 
> that's a  matter of trashing the multimedia stuff that comes with Fedora 
> and  replacing it.  My flash mp3 player doesn't play ogg,  and I'd 
> rather  install some encoder software of questionably status than shell 
> out  another $200 for one that does.
> 
>     I know you can't really do anything about it,  but this underlying  
> problem makes improvements to multimedia players on Fedora like  
> rearraigning the deck chairs on the titanic.

Has a high-ranked RedHat official ever tried calling Fraunhofer in Germany to 
negociate something ? Fraunhofer has always said they would not enfore the MP3 
patents onto open-source and free projects. Maybe RHEL wouldn't qualify, but 
Fedora should be fine...