RPM Fusion Starts Rolling Out For Fedora 22

[Mat2]

If you have ever bought any commercial media player device, you have bought the license to play MP3 with it. I have probably bought a a dozen such devices in the last years (standalone MP3 players, phones, etc.). The same is true for other popular royalty encumbered codecs.

Why does this matter here? The manufacturer has bought a license to play mp3 only on the specified device.

If anything, the current royalty-based business model is unethical. I don't think this argument flies here.

1. patents are fundamentally evil

Possibly, but I am not sure whether it is a valid exception to use at the receiving end of law. Additionally, not everyone agrees that software patents are wrong. For example, on Groklaw I have once read a very nice guest article from prof. Michael Risch that has a somewhat balanced opinion when it comes to what software patents should be permissible:

http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20120610180253648

So, you can see that I?m in sort of a middle-ground that makes no-one happy. Anti-software patent folks think that I give too much credit to the non-abstract aspects of software. Pro-software patent folks think that I too easily see software as abstract. As we like to say at home when the kids have to compromise: if no one is happy, then I must be doing the right thing.

2. only american men should generally follow american law. in other countries law is different

Unfortunately it's not true that no software patents are allowed in Europe. At least EPO (European Patent Office) grants many software patents (but one could argue that it misinterprets the law): http://www.epo.org/news-issues/issues/software.html There were some known patent lawsuits in Germany. Even in my country (Poland) a court recently (in last year or so) declared that a software patent (on MPEG-2 or some other codec) is valid.

For most manufacturers software patents are not so much of a problem as for open source (if developers does not want to break it, that is). On the other hand, if one doesn't care about licenses, it is usually not a problem for him to use any patented technology (e.g. RPM Fusion makes this easy).

(please excuse me for my English)

[Redi44]

1. patents are fundamentally evil
2. only american men should generally follow american law. in other countries law is different

I have to agree. I mean SW patents are not as evil as let's say pharmaceutical or agricultural ones but they are still bad. And lol at everyone forcing me to follow US "law".

[pal666]

I would argue that use of patented software without an appropriate license from the patent holder is unethical. Like it or not, man should generally follow the law - unless special circumstances occur (such as when what law demands is fundamentally evil).

1. patents are fundamentally evil
2. only american men should generally follow american law. in other countries law is different

[jakubo]

are f23 repos available too? cause i still get "missing mirrors" error message...

[brent]

A good example of how the royalty system is abused is MPEG-2 licensing. While H.264 licenses are probably quite reasonable (0.24 USD per device), the MPEG-2 license comes at a whopping 2.50 USD per device with additional fees, for example for mediums carrying MPEG-2 content (e.g. DVDs). I don't think at this point anyone can seriously argue the purpose of those royalties still is to amortize the R&D that once went into MPEG-2. Most of the patents part of the MPEG-2 pool have expired by now. MPEG-2 licensing is basically just profiteering and extortion. MPEG-2 is still widely used and in many cases you don't have a choice to use anything else, so you have to pay the overpriced royalty.

See also: http://www.businesswire.com/news/hom...s-Report-Finds

[brent]

I would argue that use of patented software without an appropriate license from the patent holder is unethical. Like it or not, man should generally follow the law - unless special circumstances occur (such as when what law demands is fundamentally evil). I was unfortunately unable to find any special circumstance that would be firmly applicable here, though I am investigating further.

If you have ever bought any commercial media player device, you have bought the license to play MP3 with it. I have probably bought a a dozen such devices in the last years (standalone MP3 players, phones, etc.). The same is true for other popular royalty encumbered codecs. If anything, the current royalty-based business model is unethical. I don't think this argument flies here.

[Redi44]

sorry for being blunt,
but is the stuff for playing mp3 (gstreamer) in the free or non-free repos?
As an ordinary user of course I can't understand this complex process (on my side and on rpm fusion side of things) for adding codecs.. while I of course understand patent/proprietary issues.
Cheers

Yeah, that's in the free repo, but gstreamer-plugins-bad-nonfree isn't and you (as an ordinary user) need that. So F22 is still a no-go...

[Mat2]

I would argue that use of patented software without an appropriate license from the patent holder is unethical. Like it or not, man should generally follow the law - unless special circumstances occur (such as when what law demands is fundamentally evil). I was unfortunately unable to find any special circumstance that would be firmly applicable here, though I am investigating further.

Ideally we would be able to pay $2 a box and then use any of commonly used A/V decoders on that computer without hassle (until proprietary codecs die out of course). Unfortunately, noone is offering such a licensing program and the Fluendo codecs are much more expensive.

Note: I am an opponent of software patents

[RahulSundaram]

sorry for being blunt,
but is the stuff for playing mp3 (gstreamer) in the free or non-free repos?
As an ordinary user of course I can't understand this complex process (on my side and on rpm fusion side of things) for adding codecs.. while I of course understand patent/proprietary issues.
Cheers

It is just installing a couple of RPM packages but if you find it complex, try http://satya164.github.io/fedy/

[Awesomeness]

sorry for being blunt,
but is the stuff for playing mp3 (gstreamer) in the free or non-free repos?
As an ordinary user of course I can't understand this complex process (on my side and on rpm fusion side of things) for adding codecs.. while I of course understand patent/proprietary issues.
Cheers

Fedora isn't for ordinary users. For such users there is https://kororaproject.org/about