Fedora Planning Ahead For The Next 5 Years

[CommunityMember]

For those h264 lovers: the patents on the basic protocol expire in a few months. So you get to use your codec in FOSS.

Base and main profile only. The high profile patents do not expire until 2027/2028, and the high profile is commonly used for HD quality content.

However, for many/most Linux distributions, Cisco makes available (and pays the license fees for) OpenH264, so for those that are willing and want to use a patented codec, they normally can (although software only; the hardware licenses are still an issue).

[CommunityMember]

Thanks, this perfectly explains why Fedora/RedHat cannot ship Mesa with HW acceleration for patented codecs although ... I'm not so sure they have over 100K users which exempts them from any responsibility and royalties. In fact I'm quite sure they have a lot fewer active installations. According to various polls and distrowatch data Fedora is barely in top 10 of most popular Linux distros and all the Linux distros combined have maybe ~10 to 20 million users. Maybe RedHat just wants to avoid any possible issues.

Unless you track the numbers, you cannot know how many installs you have, so you are required to track to meet the licensing requirements. Do you want all your distros tracking you and requiring telemetry (that is obviously a rhetorical question, since of course you don't)? One of the advantages of the Apple/Google app stores is they track the installs for you (so you can take that number, and send your license fees to the licensing organization for any patented technology; that is true for codecs, or any other patented tech in your app).

[avis]

Unless you track the numbers, you cannot know how many installs you have, so you are required to track to meet the licensing requirements. Do you want all your distros tracking you and requiring telemetry (that is obviously a rhetorical question, since of course you don't)? One of the advantages of the Apple/Google app stores is they track the installs for you (so you can take that number, and send your license fees to the licensing organization for any patented technology; that is true for codecs, or any other patented tech in your app).

If I remember correctly Fedora intended to have some sort of very basic installation telemetry, an installation UID or something like that. Maybe I'm totally wrong or it was a different distro. And I don't remember whether it was enabled or not.

[CommunityMember]

If I remember correctly Fedora intended to have some sort of very basic installation telemetry, an installation UID or something like that. Maybe I'm totally wrong or it was a different distro. And I don't remember whether it was enabled or not.

You are perhaps thinking of Smolt. Smolt was an early attempt at opt-in telemetry (to collect hardware information so that decisions such as "can we drop support for X?" could be based on actual usage data). It disappeared around a decade ago (intended to be replaced with something called census, but that never happened, and more recently by hw-probe), and in any case, opt-in, or even opt-out, anonymous telemetry would generally not meet the requirements of counting.

[avis]

You are perhaps thinking of Smolt. Smolt was an early attempt at opt-in telemetry (to collect hardware information so that decisions such as "can we drop support for X?" could be based on actual usage data). It disappeared around a decade ago (intended to be replaced with something called census, but that never happened, and more recently by hw-probe), and in any case, opt-in, or even opt-out, anonymous telemetry would generally not meet the requirements of counting.

Thanks! Most people here will hate me for saying that but I believe it's not only necessary, it should be opt-out not opt-in and be installed by default. It would have helped Linux development immensely.

[andyprough]

"Fedora is for everyone"
"Fedora Linux Disabling Mesa's H.264 / H.265 / VC1 VA-API Support Over Legal Concerns"

Fedora is for everyone that wants the IBM legal department designing their desktop systems.

[NotMine999]

So a high-level Fedora mucky-muck (or group of mucky-mucks, aka "a banana peel") decided Fedora needed a roadmap of architectures to delete over the coming years.

Gee I am glad I stopped using Fedora over a decade ago.

[shanedav4]

Did anyone else see the part concerning spins and remixes? It said "It's trivial to create and maintain a new spin or remix...". I don't imagine it's trivial to the person or persons creating and maintaining it.

[Alexmitter]

Fedora is for everyone that wants the IBM legal department designing their desktop systems.

Its not Fedora's, or Redhat's fault that Software Patents exist in their jurisdiction.

[Alexmitter]

"Fedora is for everyone"
"Fedora Linux Disabling Mesa's H.264 / H.265 / VC1 VA-API Support Over Legal Concerns"

How about:
"Fedora chose to violate software patents"
"Fedora got sued into oblivion"
"Fedora does not exist anymore"