Hello. I am interested in using Fedora in both work and home office environments. Is
Fedora structured in such a way as to abide by US software patent laws, making it safe for
work in the US? I've mainly used a couple other Linux distributions. In both cases, I
found it very difficult to determine whether or not the distro included software (such as
multimedia codecs) which were illegal to use in the United States. Since I am interested
in using Linux at work, I would like some kind of assurance that at the very least a fresh
install is free of patent-infringing software. In the past, I've worked with other
distros that made the task of reaching out and grabbing whatever codec was needed
(regardless of it's legality) almost automatic, which is nearly the opposite situation
I'm looking for. I figured since Fedora is backed by Red Hat, a US company, perhaps
the project's approach would be a bit more acceptable for the complicated patent law
situation in
this country.
I saw this page, which was
informative: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Software_Patents.
Yet, the disclaimer made it clear this was not necessarily Fedora's official stance on
these matters, so I was compelled to write an email. Thanks for any help and/or
clarification.
Jeremy (jhargis1012(a)yahoo.com)