"Licensed" codecs

[Mark Hoover]

From: Gordon Messmer <yinyang at eburg.com>

 >> I'll give you this one, only if you can tell me what would prevent
 >> something like mPlayer being released GPL, and the codec plugin from
 >> being released as a seperate binary only package?
 >
 >The availability of a codec that is not GPL licensed?  Someone could
 >write a binary only codec and acquire the needed patent license.  No
 >suitable codec exists, though, and it would take a great deal of effort
 >to write one, since you couldn't use any of the existing GPL licensed
 >code.

I'm not saying code it from scratch.  I'm saying that some company could 
make some money off this buy buying the codec license and then selling 
the binary (no source) codec that could be installed as a plugin.