[MPlayer-dev-eng] FFII software patent demo, politics, KiSS

[Diego Biurrun]

Gabucino writes:
> Diego Biurrun wrote:
> > Georg had an idea that Alan liked very much: We might make MPlayer print
> > out an informational warning message if it plays patent encumbered
> > formats.
> Huh? That sucks. What's the sense? So users can quickly press Quit if they
> are obsessed about patents? :) And what's for the GUI? Next thing you'll see
> is someone asking for an option that hides that text. MPlayer is already
> suffering from verbosity problems. I'm against that.

The sense is to clue people in about the patent mess they are living
in at this very moment and how it affects them.  Heightened awareness
about patent problems in the general populace is something we could
really use.

It's about making a statement.  If the GUI does not display these
messages when not run from a console or if there is an option to turn
them off (that you could put in your config file) is completely
secondary.

As Alan Cox said, it could also be construed as due diligence on our
part.  If problems arise in the future we can always say that we did
our best to warn people.

And I'm not even saying it has to or will be implemented.  It is an
idea that has been proposed to us.  I was sceptical at first but now I
think it may be worthwhile and Alex tended to agree.

Diego