Include MPlayer in beta?

[Andrei Botoaca]

NO THEY DON'T! BECAUSE NOT THE SOFTWARE YOU USE FOR DECODING IS
PATENTED, BUT THE CODEC ITSELF!!! if i know right ... and i'm pretty
sure i'm not mistaking ...

On Wed, 2003-09-17 at 23:05, Bryan W. Headley wrote:
> William Hooper wrote:
> > Bryan W. Headley said:
> > 
> >>William Hooper wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>b) MPlayer is saying it is GPL.  If he decides to try to use patents to
> >>>prevent distribution it is no longer GPL (see mp3 discussions).
> >>
> >>Are you saying that patenting something in a product retroactively
> >>revokes the GPL license for all prior releases?
> > 
> > 
> > The *prevent distribution* part is the issue.  I read his comments to mean
> > that whatever software was to be patented wasn't in there yet.  The mp3
> > problem comes about because the patent holder wants a license for
> > commercial use, thereby limiting the distribution.
> 
> More than that, there's licensing fees they'd like to collect.
> 
> > Granted the mp3 issue (patent holder is not the author) and this issue are
> > different, but the basic principal is the same.
> 
> Yes and no. Given the mplayer author's desire for a full player, does he 
> consider removing mp3 en/decoding "crippling" the package? What I don't 
> know is whether mp3lame ffmpeg opendivx avoids the patent issue...