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Real to Offer Open Source Windows Media for Linux
cpugeniusmv writes to tell us News.com is reporting that RealNetworks plans to release an open source method to allow Linux users to play Windows Media files. Currently Linux users are able to play the two main Windows Media formats (wmv and wma) but only if they install closed-source modules. The ability to launch this initiative comes from a recent licensing deal between RealNetworks and Microsoft and the antitrust settlement against Microsoft.
It said opensource. I'm just asuming opensource means GPL. In the current GPL, it makes the statment that it will be subjected to any future versions of the GPL. Current while only a draft version, the GPLv3 will be dificult to use for something like this.
This is something i have been trying to alert people to for a while now. Some wording clerifications and maybe some exemptions need to be made with GPLv3 or we might see stuff like windows pattented media formats making some program no longer GPL compatible. But it might not exactly stop at media formats. Supposed microsoft decided to license thier file systems in a way that aren't GPL compatible. Asuming they have a pattent on them (like for fat32) opensource readers might be now GPL incompatible. Reading certain Excell or word processing file formats might do the same. What would that do to the state of a usable desktop system from an opensource GPL provider. Sure the "agregated programs" clause might protect something, But it would take definatly take an open implementation and possibly remove GPL compatability.
I wonder how many programs would all the sudden become GPL incompatible because of some implementation of some technoligy that someone has a pattent on?