On 7/21/05, Karsten Wade kwade@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