
The Fluendo people have
fully licensed the mp3 audio codec with
redistribution rights in place, meaning that future versions of Fedora or Ubuntu will be able to support mp3 out of the box.
"In order to improve the GNU/Linux and Unix multimedia experience Fluendo announced today the immediate availability of their MP3 plug-in for the GStreamer multimedia framework. The MP3 decoder is available free of charge both for individual end users and GNU/Linux and Unix distribution makers. In addition to making their licensed binary plug-in available to the public Fluendo also released the source code to this MP3 plug-in under the very permissive MIT license allowing all kind of developers and companies access to it."
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Thanks for getting it done! We in userland appreciate it greatly! Does this mean I'll be able to rip, not just read? And will you work with Novell, RedHat, etc., to get it into the top distros? Hoping so....
IMO, the best solution for this situation is what you have done: satisfy Fraunhofer (sp?) legal requirements by contracting with them for royalties, but still being able to provide an open-source codec for the format. The RIAA isn't going to like this, since their DRM-ware on CDs won't prevent rips to MP3 on Linux boxes, but that only puts the enforcement of copyrights back to what it should be: legal action against violators, not restricted use by legal users. You have in effect swung the legal balance in that battle back in favor of "fair use" for legal users. No small feat, and not of small consequence.