Fedora struggles with harm reduction via Codec Buddy

[Mike McGrath]

Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Very interesting take on a thorny issue. Some questions about the 
> nature of the agreement is also answered here..
>
> http://www.linux.com/feature/120703
>
> "In public health, harm reduction is a practice that, rather than 
> trying to eradicate potentially dangerous choices like prostitution, 
> tries to minimize their effects. Often, the practice involves a 
> limited condoning of the practice, such as safe injection sites for 
> addicts. Harm reduction is the path that Fedora 8 has chosen on the 
> issue of MP3 and other non-free codecs in the form of Codec Buddy, a 
> Codeina-based program that tries to educate users about free software 
> while giving them easy legal access to codecs by linking to the 
> commercial Fluendo site. It's a decision about which the Fedora Board 
> and community leaders feel considerable ambivalence."

The thing about this that bugs me is if Fluendo had done the work 
themselves and gotten rpms and code together and put it in Fedora, no 
one would have a problem with it.  And, FWIW, we're not stoping any 
other companies from doing that but the perception for some reason seems 
worse when its us that did the work.

    -Mike