Fedora Desktop future- RedHat moves

[Rahul Sundaram]

Antonio Olivares

> Who is the patent holder in this case?
> I have two links on one of my pages
> 
> http://www20.brinkster.com/olivares/
> 
> http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
> http://www.freepatentsonline.com/
> 
> I understand up to a certain point.  But apparently
> there are too many patent owners and it will be hard
> to keep up who has the upper hand in this issue.  

Precisely. Multimedia is a patent mine field. For something like MP3, 
there might be multiple patents that apply to different parts of the 
technology held by different entities. Even if you decide to pay some of 
the alleged patent holders, you might still be sued by another entity. 
This is what happened in the Microsoft lawsuit. Refer to the earlier 
link I gave you.

> Suppose a musician records a disc.  He/she recorded
> that disc with a record company the record company is
> the one that holds the key to the success of the
> company.  If the artist wanted to put the music on the
> net for free downloading, the record company would
> refuse to abide by the artists intentions.  
> 
> Who holds the patent to the disc, the creator, or the
> company?  

Patents don't apply to any of these people. Only copyrights do. Patents 
apply to the specific part of the encoders/decoders.

> Does not Microsoft have they lead here?  They cannot
> play a DVD by default?  

They don't have any advantage as far as DVD players are concerned.

   I agree
> with many things, but I do not know why many people
> say that many of these things are free.  

Some of the decoders are free and open source but paten encumbered. If 
you are in a region that does not enforce software patents, the decoders 
are indeed free and legal for you.

Rahul