GStreamer's MP3 for Linux [LWN.net]

GStreamer's MP3 for Linux

Posted Jan 3, 2006 12:41 UTC (Tue) by louie (subscriber, #3285)
In reply to: GStreamer's MP3 for Linux by job
Parent article: GStreamer's MP3 for Linux

"If I'm a Linux distributor I wouldn't be interested in anything that restricts redistribution. So no gain."

Wha...? That's a fairly optimistic, naive view of Linux distributions. Every for-profit distro (that is, most of them) have been dying to have a well-supported, legal mp3 solution for their enterprise desktop products for years. Assuming the quality is good and the pricing is right, this will likely be in every enterprise desktop distro within a year.

Tangentially, the 'this is still a problem for derived works' argument is accurate, but gstreamer have written some licensing language which authors of gstreamer-derived players can use to supplement the GPL and indicate that they are OK with the use of binary-only/non-GPL compat gstreamer modules. I believe most gstreamer-based players use this exception language, so the problem is covered. I do wish LWN had actually asked the gstreamer guys about this before posting this article- sloppy research on their part.

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GStreamer's MP3 for Linux

Posted Jan 3, 2006 18:40 UTC (Tue) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link]

> I do wish LWN had actually asked the gstreamer guys about this before posting this article- sloppy research on their part.

Or, sloppy reading on yours; from the article: "There is some discussion of whether it would still be legal to include rhythmbox, which is GPL-licensed with no plugin exception, in such a work."

GStreamer's MP3 for Linux

Posted Jan 4, 2006 21:56 UTC (Wed) by spot (subscriber, #15640) [Link]

RHEL already "includes" RealPlayer, which has licensed mp3 support. The reason there are quotes around the "includes" is because it is provided to customers as an unsupported addon, since Red Hat doesn't have RealPlayer source.