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

[D Richard Felker III]

On Wed, Apr 21, 2004 at 03:10:46AM +0200, Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> * D Richard Felker III <dalias at aerifal.cx> [2004-04-19 16:24:02 -0400]:
> 
> <snip>
> > I'm against any kind of "patent-warning" in MPlayer. It discourages
> > people from using good codecs. Better to get people used to having all
> > the codecs they should, so that they're outraged when some stupid
> > corporation tries to tell them they have to stop.
> hmm, good argument.

Yeah, well I agree with the people arguing on the other side too...

> but we should also encourage people to help us stopping software patents.
> large banners or texts on the website and links to FFII would help
> very much.

Maybe it's ok to have patent warning messages... But if we do, they
need to be there for ALL codecs, including Theora. I'm really sick of
the "Theora is patent-free" propaganda. It's simply not true. Theora
uses all the same algorithms from MPEG, all of which are patented. I
expect the same is true for Vorbis.

Rich