to autodownload or not to autodownload

Rahul Sundaram sundaram at fedoraproject.org
Sun Feb 10 14:03:40 UTC 2008


Jaroslaw Gorny wrote:

> I understand that it is illegal from the US POV to link non-us users
> directly to third party repos containing codecs. Instead of this, the
> page contains only:
> "If you are in a location where these patents do not apply, you may
> have other options as well."
> And users have to find out by themselves what these options are ;)

Yes, because it is illegal otherwise.

> So why don't we just do the same with US users? Something like:
> "If you are in a location where these patents apply (eg. US), there are
> companies that provide legal software to play such formats"
> would be enough, I think.

We are allowed to point to sources in this case. If you are in U.S and 
other regions enforcing such patents, somebody has to pay for the patent 
license. It might be hardware vendor, OS vendor or whatever. Hiding the 
cost hides one of the fundamental problems that users need to understand 
(ie) a completely free Fedora cannot include paid and proprietary 
codecs. Highlighting the cost is part of the message that codeina 
provides to the end users. The fundamental part is the education and 
push for free formats unrestricted by patents. The source we point to is 
tangential and we can point to any valid source which is only one as of 
now.

Rahul




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