[vlc] Codecs

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Le Thursday 20 September 2007 17:00:55 J.B. Nicholson-Owens, vous avez écrit :
> David Gerard wrote:
>  > (This is why many Linux distributions do not ship with VLC, only
>  > allowing you to add it later; and why the LAME mp3 encoder only
>  > distributes as source, with binaries being available only from third
>  > parties who have compiled it themselves.)
>
> I don't see how adding software post-OS-install or compiling source code
> evades patent law.  There probably are some GNU/Linux distributors who
> believe this to be true, but this sounds like a patent law myth to me.

It is surely not a myth. They (Linux distributors) are surely not responsible 
for third parties distributing would-be patent encumbered software for their 
distribution, under any remotely sensible legal system.

> If it were true, why would anyone bother getting software patents
> (business method patents that cover algorithms used in software, as I
> understand it) when they are so easily avoided?

If it were false, I wonder how Microsoft would not have gone bankrupt out of 
paying patent infringment damages, since it is their platform that has both 
the largest user base and the largest set of applications from third parties.

-- 
Rémi Denis-Courmont
http://www.remlab.net/