> > Tell me where on this page:
> >
> > http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/index.html
> >
> > ...you find where it says "royalty-free distribution of free decoders."
> >
> > If you find that magic phrase, let me know and we'll drop mp3 support into
> > Fedora Core tomorrow. :)
>
> Well Greg, if we had that magic key, we would already have mp3 support in
> SUSE Linux OSS ;) Nevertheless, the retail version supports mp3 playback
> out-of-the-box(TM).
Chris, those royalties are for licensors of their patents. It is my
understanding that they don't apply to MP3 *decoders*, so you could
distribute one without licensing their patents. The list of patents
is available in
http://www.mp3licensing.com/patents/index.html
Just because they charge a per-decoder fee doesn't change things.
They could, for example, charge a third fee based on, hmm, the number
of radios sond by your corporation. That would not, by any means,
imply that radio makers now have to license their patents. I believe
the case with decoders is the same. Unless Novell also wants to
distribute MP3 *encoders*, it has no need to license these patents.
So you don't need no "magic key", just to review their patents and
notice the extent to which they apply to MP3 *decoders* (which, I
believe, is none).
Thanks.
Alejo.
http://azul.freaks-unidos.net/
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