Interesting; Pat Volkerding on MP3.

[bonzodog]

Pat volkerding has been interviewed on the llts show, and was asked why he includes the mp3 codecs in Slackware.

He says that people have badly misinterpreted the licensing terms of mp3. It IS NOT illegal to decode mp3's. But, it is illegal to encode mp3's, or so he claims, so he can legally include the codecs in Slackware.
The ogg feed is here:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheLinuxLinkTechShowOgg-vorbisFeed

Listen to the section about 20 minutes through. (it's a long interview).

[bonzodog]

*bump*

[Lord Illidan]

Wish there was a text version of this.. but essentially I hope he's right..

[gnomeuser]

Wish there was a text version of this.. but essentially I hope he's right..

He isn't but come mid 2010 when the patents run out.. nobody will care, untill then use the open decoders if permissable under your nations laws or the Fluendo licensed decoder (it's in the repos).