Fedora Desktop future- RedHat moves

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Tue, 2008-04-22 at 16:36 -0700, Francis Earl wrote:
> It has everything to do with legalities, as the source code for the
> encoders/decoders is available.

Fair point. However the precise nature of the difference between Fedora
and Ubuntu in legal terms is not entirely clear to me. On both systems
the user can install propietary codecs, and on both systems there are
clear warnings that this is "at your own risk" and the proprietary stuff
is not installed by default. The practical difference from the user's
point of view is that Ubuntu tells you how to get it and Fedora doesn't
(the fact that Ubuntu actually hosts some of it is to my mind a red
herring; they could just as easily provide pointers to 3rd-party sites
if they were worried about keeping legal distance, so apparently they
aren't worried about it).

It may also be relevant that Red Hat is a US company, and Canonical
isn't, and that US law allows software patents, and many other countries
don't (yet), but IANAL of course.

poc

> On Tue, 2008-04-22 at 18:36 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> > On Tue, 2008-04-22 at 15:57 -0700, Francis Earl wrote:
> > > Yes, despite it's legal ramifications... far better to risk your company
> > > to appease users. It's not like it's not available for Fedora, but Red
> > > Hat doesn't risk the future of the company on it.
> > > 
> > > Google for 'Microsoft billion mp3'
> > > 
> > > Mark is rich, but that's about 3 times his worth right there... he isn't
> > > licensing MP3 or any other codec for his distro, Microsoft just licensed
> > > it from the wrong people.
> > > 
> > > Now wonder consider ffmpeg for instance has Apple codecs, mpg2/4 and
> > > Microsoft codecs just to name a few, and ask yourself whether it's smart
> > > to distribute this stuff.
> > > 
> > > Only reason he gets away with it is because Ubuntu represents such a low
> > > market share that it's not worth it today.
> > 
> > AFAIK he doesn't "distribute" it (for some meaning of "distribute"),
> > just makes it easy to get. I may be wrong (and I've no interest in
> > arguing about it), but I think the Fedora rationale for not doing the
> > same thing has more to do with avoiding lockin than avoiding lawsuits.
> > 
> > poc
> > 
> > > On Tue, 2008-04-22 at 18:08 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> > > > On Tue, 2008-04-22 at 14:29 -0700, Francis Earl wrote:
> > > > > The only real benefits of Ubuntu are proprietary drivers by default, and
> > > > > easier access to patent encumbered codecs... catering to users so much
> > > > > is why Ubuntu is so popular... no other reason.
> > > > 
> > > > How dare they offer something that users want :-)
> > > > 
> > > > poc
> > > > 
> > > 
> > 
>