[Fwd: [Bug 163675] mpeg situation not explained in documentation]

[Jeff Spaleta]

On 7/21/05, Karsten Wade <kwade at redhat.com> wrote:
> a) Fedora has not done a very good job of loudly advertising why we
> don't distribute certain codecs, although we do spend a lot of time
> addressing the topic in other ways.

Scapegoat sez, "Patent royalties are the pressure sensitive landmines
of software development. Field mice don't have to worry about it. But
a herd of sheep do."

Getting the message out about the dangers of patent royalties
succinctly in a way that encourages people to get informed about the
larger issues where foss and patents intersect is a pretty tough nut.
Any explanation inevitably has to touch on the project's commitment to
make sure 3rd parties can use and re-distribute all the provided
software without getting additional permission from individual patent
holders.  I don't know how you say that in a way that make a
compelling read... I fell asleep while trying to write this paragraph
and again when reading over it for mistakes.

-jef