removed mp3 support in media players in fedora core 1

[J.B. Nicholson-Owens]

George Farris wrote:
> Every time someone complains about the lack of mp3 support it irks me.
> What you're saying here is ignore the mp3 license but uphold the GPL.
> Think about it.  If we want people to respect the GPL then we must respect
> other licenses.

This is a bit of an apples to oranges comparison.

The license preventing inclusion of MP3 software in a Free Software
operating system such as GNU/Linux is a patent license.  Many believe that
patents covering algorithms used in computer software (more succinctly known
as "software patents") should not be honored.  There are many valid points
to defend this argument.  Richard Stallman succinctly and thoroughly covers
them in his patent talk which you can read or listen to at
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ in the "speeches" area.

By comparison, the GNU GPL is a copyright license.  Copyright is a good
basis on which to build computer software because it allows anyone who is
willing to put the work into reinventing the program to license their work
according to their wishes.  For quite some time software patents did not
exist and all we had was copyright.  If we lived in a world without software
patents, with only copyrights covering computer software, we could have the
MP3 software already out there and get on with the task of either improving
it or using something better to replace it.

I don't think software patents should exist but I honor them with regard to
MP3.  I do this by encouraging the widespread use of Ogg Vorbis instead.
Vorbis, in my opinion, offers superior encoding to MP3 at comparable file
sizes (or Vorbis offers comparable quality at smaller file sizes than MP3,
if you prefer to compare the other way).  Vorbis is patent-free and part of
an exciting set of codecs that I hope will someday become the de facto
standard for Internet audio-video distribution on computers.