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Canonical Explains Decision to License H.264 For Ubuntu

Posted by timothy on from the less-painful-to-pay dept.

tux writes with this snippet from The Register: "Ubuntu's commercial sponsor Canonical has tried to clarify how — if not why — it has licensed a closed-source and patented codec for video on PCs running its Linux. Canonical is the first Linux shop to have agreed to license the codec in question, H.264, from MPEG LA. Even though Red Hat and Novell are also available for use on PCs, they have not licensed H.264."

5 of 372 comments (clear)

  1. Misleading title and summary by armanox · · Score: 5, Informative

    Reading the article and linked articles points out that this only applies purchased copies of Ubuntu and not the downloaded version that everyone seems to adore.

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    I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
  2. HOW? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Since TFS is so suckily misleading, I actually RTFA this time. Everybody's been saying it's legally impossible for Mozilla to license H.264 for Firefox, because MPEG LA requires a limit on the number of installs or something. Of course since Ubuntu is freely distributable, all the same arguments would apply. So WTF?

    But it turns out this doesn't mean licensing the codec for the installs we end users make from the ISOs we've downloaded and burned or anything. It's about offering OEMs the option of licensing it for preinstalled copies of Ubuntu.

  3. Re:WHY? by AvitarX · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm pretty sure they didn't display it because they made changes to it and mozilla said "this ain't our firefox"

    Since then they changed it to mozilla's firefox with ubuntu extensions installed.

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    Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
  4. Re:HOW? -- mod parent up by olden · · Score: 5, Informative

    Please mod parent up; so far this seems the only informed comment on this thread (sigh).
    Link to TFA: http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Canonical-clarifies-its-H-264-licence-993182.html

  5. Re:Good thing by init100 · · Score: 4, Informative

    or demand them to add some Russian repositories in the apt-get config file so they can get unlicensed, pirated versions of those and break the law.

    Unless the term piracy now also includes patent infringement those codecs aren't pirated. They are simply illegal to distribute in the United States because the US allows software patents, and the software is covered by such US patents. The codecs in questions are perfectly legal in any country where software is not patentable.