A third different view?

A third different view?

Posted Mar 27, 2008 2:23 UTC (Thu) by pr1268 (guest, #24648)
Parent article: Distribution-friendly projects - Part 1

You mention two views, technical and philosophical. But, doesn't a legal need pose a third view?

One example I can think of off-hand is XMMS in Red Hat/Fedora - their downstream version had MP3 playback support removed (in both source and binary RPMs) because RH wanted to avoid patent litigation, or the threat thereof (so I've read/heard). But, the XMMS source tarball available from the SourceForge page has MP3 playback support (I haven't checked in a while).

Granted, this might partly fall under the "philosophical" category. I suppose that, as a distributor of Linux software, Red Hat is a much easier target for patent trolls when compared to some code sitting on a server somewhere (and accordingly, RH must work harder to protect itself).

P.S. Ahhh, I just remembered that the lack of MP3 playback in Red Hat/Fedora was the root cause of one of Eric S. Raymond's infamous temper tantrums! :-)

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I actually merged legal-related issues together with philosophical issues. They are
philosophical 
after all, just more "country-wide philosophy" rather than project philosophy ;) What is (or
might not 
be) legal in one country can easily be legal in another. But just wait till Part 3 and you'll
read it all :)