Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on March 08, 2007 10:12 PM
One of the purposes of distributions like Fedora is to serve as a base for commercial distributions (like RHEL.) So incorporating non-free software, such as a patent-encumbered MP3 algorithm, would be a serious issue. It doesn't matter that Fraunhoffer (today, with the wind blowing in a south easterly direction) is apparently saying that you can use MP3 as long as you don't charge for it, if it were incorporated into Fedora, and someone was to build a distribution upon Fedora and sell it, they'd risk lawsuits.
There's nothing stopping someone from creating repositories of non-free gratis software to bolt onto Fedora and similar distributions. But it would harm Fedora immensely if it incorporated non-free software, even software it is licensed to redistribute.
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Re:LINUX often DELIBERATELY CRIPPLED
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on March 08, 2007 10:12 PMThere's nothing stopping someone from creating repositories of non-free gratis software to bolt onto Fedora and similar distributions. But it would harm Fedora immensely if it incorporated non-free software, even software it is licensed to redistribute.
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