[Fedora-legal-list] Can we get an official fedora position on OpenH264?

[Tom Callaway]

On 11/04/2013 02:31 PM, Josh Boyer wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 2:22 PM, Bruno Wolff III <bruno at wolff.to> wrote:
>> If Fedora is not going to implement (or remove) the ability for Firefox
>> the ability to download the OpenH264 binary from Cisco, this might affect
>> the decision to have H.264 as a mandatory to implement codec for WebRTC.
>> It has been suggested that it might help Fedora to comment on the project's
>> position on the WebRTC's mailing list, particularly as it is looking more
>> likely for H.264 to be mandatory now that Cisco is going to provide a
>> binary implementation free of cost when downloaded directly from Cisco.
>>
>> Several people have stated that Fedora will not allow this, but it would
>> be nice to know the official situation and to comment on that to the
>> working group.

The OpenH264 binary from Cisco does not include a patent license which
applies to the source. Fedora does not permit the inclusion of binary
software without source code.

Thus, the OpenH264 code from Cisco is not acceptable in Fedora.

Whether it is acceptable for Firefox to download pre-built binary
software for it to use... well, that decision is up to FESCo, but I
would imagine that this is functionally equivalent to the Codeina/Codec
Buddy MP3 situation, where it was decided that Fedora did not want to
include software that did that.

~tom

==
Fedora Project