On Mon, Nov 04, 2013 at 15:46:07 +0100, Alberto Ruiz <aruiz@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
While I agree that we shouldn't silently install non-free software (and I'm sure Mozilla doesn't want to either), saying that they are effectively non-free is a bit inaccurate, the _binaries_ are not re-distributable under US jurisdiction, access to the source code is granted, which makes them non-US, the software is free (the source license does grant 4 freedoms). There are plenty of countries where software patents are not valid making it perfectly fine.
If you don't need to worry about the patents, then x264 (available from RPMFusion) is going to be better code to use for handling h.264.
It's a trade off, would you rather have users not being able to play a hugely widespread codec that happens to be free software or would you rather make the default experience in Fedora and Firefox better for our users?
The issue for RTC is that we could be using a royalty free codec, such as VP8 instead. Accepting the binary makes it more likely that h.264 will be made mandatory to implement, which means any company not wanting to implement VP8 can always point to h.264 being mandatory as an excuse not to support VP8.
Another thing to worry about is how the binary is licensed. Accepting that license (even in places where software patents don't apply) could potentially cause issues. I haven't read the license for it yet, but most likely it will be a typcial consumer license that only covers non-commercial use (similar to what people get when they buy digital movie cameras).
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