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

[Ankur Sinha]

On Thu, 2011-08-04 at 06:48 -0700, Jeremy Hargis wrote:
> 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)
> 

Hello,

This might be what you're looking for:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Forbidden_items

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Main


-- 
Thanks, 
Regards,
Ankur: "FranciscoD"

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Ankursinha
http://dodoincfedora.wordpress.com/