• bjorney@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Multimedia codecs have a different license agreement than the OS so they aren’t bundled by default for a reason

    • hottari
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      1 year ago

      I don’t care about the licenses. If I click on my media and it refuses to play because some codec is omitted by default, am annoyed nonetheless.

      • bjorney@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Most distros have a checkbox during the installer that will add non-free components. It’s a separate EULA you need to agree to so they can’t do it for you.

        You may not care, but the distro provider’s legal team absolutely cares about not getting sued for automatically bundling components with an incompatible license agreement

        • hottari
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          1 year ago

          The non-free components I’ve seen on installers are usually for Nvidia’s proprietary drivers. Not codecs.

          Sounds like legal panic if you ask me. There’s been no precedent for litigation on use of licensed codecs which most have been using either way prior in their builds and packages.

          • arglebargle@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            MPEG LA is (now Via Licensing Alliance) has been active in collecting fees and defending patents. There is no reason to assume they won’t go after distros, particularly those who can pay given that they are willing to take on anyone else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG_LA

            • hottari
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              1 year ago

              They have never gone after said distros all those many many years they have bundled licensed codecs in their ISOs. What changed?

              • arglebargle@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                Because those distros have (as we are talking about) distanced themselves from the patent encumbered codecs? When Google tried to get behind VP8, MPEG LA was right there to try and stop them by trying to get them into the pool.

                Edit: I should have said many didn’t Fedora opted out of compiling mesa with hardware accell, and it seems others did too recently. But that means it was there the whole time. I guess most distros, that have any money, are going to want shelter from lawsuits.

      • hottari
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        1 year ago

        More annoyed when the distro doesn’t even bother to document how to properly install the “missing” codecs.

          • hottari
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            1 year ago

            Nope. VLC uses system libraries, unless you install through something that ships its own dependencies like flatpak.

            • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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              1 year ago

              I’ve heard it’s great for opening any file. Is it good with a bunch of file formats as opposed to media codecs?

              • hottari
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                1 year ago

                VLC is good everywhere even though it cannot compare to MPV in number of features available. It will work for most people just fine.