"Eric S. Raymond" <esr(a)thyrsus.com> writes:
Horst von Brand <vonbrand(a)inf.utfsm.cl>:
> Which SUSE? The paid one? No problem, they can pay for the codecs.
Which, I'm suggesting, Red Hat could do also.
Which would be useless to Fedora, and would also be useless to anyone
downstream (i.e. wanting to re-distribute Fedora). Just because Red
Hat obtain a license to exercise the technology covered by the patent
doesn't grant anyone downstream of them a license.
If you *can* get Fraunhofer to grant a patent license that applies to
everyone downstream of the party to whom the license is granted, for a
price that party is able to pay, then you've effectively negated the
monopoly of that particular patent.
I would welcome such a scenario, but I think it has "a snowball's
chance in a supernova" of occurring, to quote some recently-seen
hyperbole.
--
\ "The World is not dangerous because of those who do harm but |
`\ because of those who look at it without doing anything." -- |
_o__) Albert Einstein |
Ben Finney