[MPlayer-dev-eng] Re: .deb .. yadayada

[Franck Arnaud]

> mencoder is mpeg encoder, and debian does not distribute 
> those for some weird patent or something reasons.

This is not really weird, or some border-case patent, there's 
a whole pile of patented things in MPEG some of which probably 
do make sense. If MPEG encoders were included in Debian, anyone 
selling a Debian CD for $1 would have to pay licensing fees 
for MPEG (like Apple pays for mpeg4 in the quicktime player). 
Mplayer and Lame are fine as source code, because source 
code is just a description of how to do MPEG and not an 
actual product. If the patent owners were bothered, they could 
ask anyone who compiles and uses an open source MPEG encoder 
to pay a license, but I guess they're not bothered as long 
as it's a marginal thing (and collecting fees from 
individuals seems impractical).