Redhat 8.0 & Mp3

[Calum]

well i just don't see how red hat can't include the mp3 plugin for free but xmms.org can. eh?
i just experienced this issue first hand and it confused me for a minute till i remembered this thread... i bet a lot of newbies (who always try red hat first) will be finding this mp3 thing annoying too and not knowing what to do about it.

[KernelPanic]

quote:Originally posted by Calum:
well i just don't see how red hat can't include the mp3 plugin for free but xmms.org can. eh?
i just experienced this issue first hand and it confused me for a minute till i remembered this thread... i bet a lot of newbies (who always try red hat first) will be finding this mp3 thing annoying too and not knowing what to do about it.

ReHat could have included the mp3 plugin but they were worried about legal action due to the silly patent issues that are going on. I suppose it has been a minor annoyance to people but I suppose it's better than RedHat getting it's ass sued.

[Calum]

suppose so, and i just noticed void main's reply about id3 tags! thanks void main! i will get that right now!

[flap]

Hopefully this sort of thing will help to get people thinking about using the technically superior, patent free ogg format instead. Obviously you can't do anything about other people encoding files as mp3s, but if you're encoding yourself you should really use ogg.

[Calum]

that's fine if you are filesharing with your friends, but say i want to host my own music for promotional purposes to get people to download it. if i say 'free mp3s' i bet more people download them and hear them than if i said 'free ogg vorbis files!'.

that said, i agree with you entirely!

[flap]

Well you could just say "Free music".
And remember, it's not just an issue of freedom - oggs sound better and are smaller than mp3s.

[voidmain]

I agree that Ogg is the way to go. And don't the most popular players support it (winamp)? You could make both formats available along with a note about Ogg's superiority (politically and technically).

A note about Red Hat. I believe it was more of a timing issue. I am pretty sure they had the MP3 libraries included with the 8.0 betas but right at final release time it became an issue and they decided to pull it. Shortly after that time I believe the patent holders have come out and said that it would have been ok to include it. I am curious if these libraries are included in the 8.1 beta. I bet there is a good chance you will see them back in 8.1.

[Calum]

well, at the moment i'm more concerned with the physical mechanics of putting all that stuff back in than whether it'll be in in future. in a way it's good since it makes me think about stuff and how to get it to work.  

[voidmain]

In my experience all that stuff relating to MP3 amounted to nothing more than 1 or 2 RPMs that were installed in a matter of seconds.