[MEncoder-users] DivX in 1.0rc1

[Rich Felker]

On Sat, Oct 28, 2006 at 08:59:07AM -0700, RC wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Oct 2006 10:08:24 -0400
> The Wanderer <inverseparadox at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> > There's no real advantage to using DivX instead of the
> > other, more free MPEG-4 encoders.
> 
> Legality...  They've secured licensing on the MPEG4 patents, while Xvid
> and libavcodec obviously haven't.

This is yet another reason that we absolutely should not support Divx
libs. Aside from violating GPL on all the code we've imported in the
ordinary ways, it also goes against the GPL idea of patents in section
7. If users want to be cowards and hide behind proprietary software
for protection from bogus patent claims, that's their business, but
it's not our job to be supporting them in this or including
proprietary software in MPlayer for their convenience.

Rich