Most distros have a checkbox during the installer that will add non-free components. It’s a separate EULA you need to agree to so they can’t do it for you.
You may not care, but the distro provider’s legal team absolutely cares about not getting sued for automatically bundling components with an incompatible license agreement
MPEG LA is (now Via Licensing Alliance) has been active in collecting fees and defending patents. There is no reason to assume they won’t go after distros, particularly those who can pay given that they are willing to take on anyone else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG_LA
Because those distros have (as we are talking about) distanced themselves from the patent encumbered codecs? When Google tried to get behind VP8, MPEG LA was right there to try and stop them by trying to get them into the pool.
Edit: I should have said many didn’t Fedora opted out of compiling mesa with hardware accell, and it seems others did too recently. But that means it was there the whole time. I guess most distros, that have any money, are going to want shelter from lawsuits.
Multimedia codecs have a different license agreement than the OS so they aren’t bundled by default for a reason
deleted by creator
Most distros have a checkbox during the installer that will add non-free components. It’s a separate EULA you need to agree to so they can’t do it for you.
You may not care, but the distro provider’s legal team absolutely cares about not getting sued for automatically bundling components with an incompatible license agreement
deleted by creator
MPEG LA is (now Via Licensing Alliance) has been active in collecting fees and defending patents. There is no reason to assume they won’t go after distros, particularly those who can pay given that they are willing to take on anyone else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG_LA
deleted by creator
Because those distros have (as we are talking about) distanced themselves from the patent encumbered codecs? When Google tried to get behind VP8, MPEG LA was right there to try and stop them by trying to get them into the pool.
Edit: I should have said many didn’t Fedora opted out of compiling mesa with hardware accell, and it seems others did too recently. But that means it was there the whole time. I guess most distros, that have any money, are going to want shelter from lawsuits.
deleted by creator
Don’t mistake this as condescension, but doesn’t VLC solve all of that?
deleted by creator
I’ve heard it’s great for opening any file. Is it good with a bunch of file formats as opposed to media codecs?
deleted by creator