[COLUG] [No] MPEG video in RHEL5: Patents

[Jeffrey Tadlock]

On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 6:57 PM, Scott Merrill <skippy at skippy.net> wrote:
> Debian, one of the most zealously Free Software distributions around,
> makes available an MPEG codec in their main distribution tree:
> http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=mpeg&searchon=names&suite=stable&section=main
>
> Only 100% Free Software (as defined by the FSF) is supposed to go into
> the Main repository.
>
> libmpeg2-4
> http://packages.debian.org/etch/libmpeg2-4
> which is based on this GPL licensed upstream code:
> http://libmpeg2.sourceforge.net/

I believe the issue that Red Hat / Fedora see is that the use of the
MPEG format requires a licensing fee as mentioned in the wikipedia
article.  So you can make the software to play it open source, but it
doesn't change the fact that the format itself is patent protected and
requires a licensing fee.

> So, short of compiling libmpeg2-4 myself (and potentially rolling it
> out to any academic lab computer that uses RHEL5), what is the
> RHEL-blessed mechanism for obtaining and installing video codecs?

I am not certain about Red Hat, but Fedora was pointing people to the
Fluendo site in Fedora 8 for MP3 use:

https://shop.fluendo.com/

They also have MPEG decoders for sale.

Fluendo has made agreements with the MPEG Licensing Authority to
provide such a solution.  Some more info is here on their announcement
of this:

http://lwn.net/Articles/217583/

~Jeffrey