Fedora and MP3

Fedora and MP3

Posted Apr 6, 2006 4:02 UTC (Thu) by dang (guest, #310)
Parent article: Fedora and MP3

I'm a bit baffled here.

From the perspective of promoting open source, I think redhat's decision is as correct. If mp3 licensing is restrictive, and if there are ( better ) open source alternatives like ogg, then bite the bullet. In many ways, the problem here isn't with ogg, it is that you can't play oggs on your ipod, or you can't buy oggs from your favorite vendor. This bullet biting strategy is consistent with linux kernel's bulet biting stragegy with respect to binary drivers in general ( esp with respect to graphics cards and wireless cards ). There are compatibility issues, they suck, but the right answer is push back on vendors.

On the other hand, for the perspective of the end user, if you really need to access media that fedora doesn't support, it takes one quick google search to find out which repos you need to add to your yum repository list. Simpler than the steps that you'd need to go through if you wanted a binary driver for your graphics card, etc.

So I don't really have a problem with distros both doing the right thing, doing it as a matter of policy, and not weasling about it. For users that are interested in free beer, there are trivial answers. And this isn't news. Redhat hasn't shipped mp3 support in a long while.

---

(Log in to post comments)