[Fedora-legal-list] Codecs and using Fedora in the United States

[Jeremy Hargis]

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 at yahoo.com)
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