On Tue, 2005-12-27 at 01:20 -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
Jeff Pitman <jeff.pitman(a)gmail.com> writes:
> (Optimally, FC should just take up the offer and include it in the
> distro. Wasn't Redhat offering indemnication against ghost-cases of
> patent claims during the SCO debacle? How about MP3? :D)
IANAL, I don't speak for Red Hat, etc ... but a couple of points seem
worth making here:
1. SCO's claims are utterly without merit. (IMHO, yadda yadda, see
above.) The MP3 patents are real.
2. SCO's claims cover the basis of the Unix/Linux system, while the
ability to play MP3's is, um, inessential to getting other things done.
The risk/reward ratio for Red Hat to consider indemnifying users against
the two issues is completely different. I don't think you'll see Red
Hat going out on a limb for MP3 players.
I also think that the indemnification only applies to paying customers
(eg RHEL) and not fedora...