H.264 in Fedora 17!

[David Nalley]

On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 10:29 PM, Fedora Video <fedoravideo at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 10:11 PM, Rahul Sundaram <metherid at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Note that Debian does include a decoder by default for both MP3 and
>> H.264 but they can only do so because they are a non-profit and the
>> worst case scenario is a injunction until they remove the infringing
>> parts so realistically noone is going to go after them because one
>> cannot extract money from Debian.
>
>
> This is not true according to the debian social contract.
> http://www.debian.org/social_contract
>
> There is no mention of copyright on the page. It is not a page about
> copyright.
>
> Your argument is refuted most strongly by
>
> License Must Not Be Specific to Debian
>
> No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
>
> No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
>
> The document is quite clear that Debian will not distribute software which
> only they can distribute or which can only be distributed non-commercially.
>
> Debian distributes H.264 because it is free at least in the majority of the
> world which does not have a terrorist government.   Put down your religion
> and look again.
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 8:46 PM, Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler at chello.at>
> wrote:
>>
>> Avi אבי Alkalay אלקלעי  wrote:
>> > What are the legal tools that Ubuntu uses so it can ship H.264 ?
>>
>> It's based on the Isle of Man, not in the USA.
>
>
> Ubuntu's parent company is headquartered in the UK just like RedHat is
> headquartered in the US.
>
> If the US's repressive laws are holding Fedora back, why not simply open a
> Fedora organization in the Isle of Man just like Ubuntu has done.
>
> In any case. This argument is moot. Fedora will distribute H.264 because it
> will be part of Firefox.
>


Fedora will not ship h.264 support for the foreseeable future.

Yes software patents are bad. No one here disagrees.

Red Hat is not going to assume the risk of shipping h.264 support,
just like they haven't assumed the risk of shipping MP3 support. And
regardless of how effective the arguments, and how evil software
patents are, that fact isn't going to change.

So as fun as this thread is, lets save everyone some time and
frustration and consider this thread closed.


--David