Red Hat Announces Fedora Will Support MP3 Playback (fedoraproject.org)

Long-time Slashdot reader jrincayc shares news from Red Hat's Fedora Engineering Manager, Tom Callaway. On the Fedora-legal mailing list, Callaway announced: Red Hat has determined that it is now acceptable for Fedora to include MP3 decoding functionality (not specific to any implementation, or binding by any unseen agreement). Encoding functionality is not permitted at this time.
And the same day Christian Schaller announced on the Gnome blog that mp3 playback would be supported in Fedora Workstation 25. You should be able to download the mp3 plugin on Day 1 through GNOME Software or through the missing codec installer in various GStreamer applications. For Fedora Workstation 26 I would not be surprised if we decide to ship it on the install media.
He added, "I know this has been a big wishlist item for a long time for a lot of people..."

Comments

Welcome to the future!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fedora users are gonna party likes its 1999!

Re: Welcome to the future!

[KiloByte]

it took them 20 years to add mp3 support, how long do you think it takes to fix the init system which was taken in 5 years ago? Hint: do not hold your breath while waiting.

I don't expect systemd to be fixed, ever, but in 5 years you can expect the CADT team to invent a yet another init scheme, with even more regressions, and force everyone to transition to it.

Re: Welcome to the future!

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I don't expect systemd to be fixed, ever, but in 5 years you can expect the CADT team to invent a yet another init scheme, with even more regressions, and force everyone to transition to it.

Lets call it dmetsys; it'll use double-encypted log and config files with a proprietary unlock key that costs $75 per bootup.

All config directives will be in Sumerian, but the values will be written in Sicilian Arabic.

Documentation must be done solely in Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Finally, any configuration mistake should trigger an automatic format of all attached hard drives.

Re: wtf?

[Anonymous Coward]

No it doesn't. There was a patent on mp3 decoding and still one on encoding. Red hat not wanting to be sued by Fraunhofer opted out of paying royalties. Everyone using mpg123, xmms, etc have wilfully ignored this law because really how would a university sue every user? They don't they sue distributors. That is why Be Inc , Microsoft, apple, Ubuntu etc all pay royalties.

The patents have expired, now it can be included without violating the law

Re:Why bother...

[NotInHere]

Indeed we do, but consider that reencoding files in vorbis and opus makes them subject to generational loss, and you'll still need an mp3 decoder for that. Plus, you'll lose the ability to share it with other people, because they won't be able to play back the file, or wonder what the ".opus" file extension is.

Its sad, but if you show this headline to random non technical people, and explained to them that fedora was an OS like windows or mac os, they will think that fedora couldn't play back audio files before.

Re: wtf?

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a wild guess.

Re:1993 just called, they want their codec back.

[TheRealMindChild]

The MP3 format that we know today came to light in 1995 with the finalization of MPEG-2 layer 3. AS for actual implementation, the first reference implementation was at the end of 1994, and the first player somewhere in 1995.

Welcome to 1999

[geek]

This type of shit really holds Linux back from the mainstream

Re:Welcome to 1999

[fibonacci8]

Software Patents? Yes we know. According to OSNews the last of the patents expires in April of 2017. So the base install of the next version of Fedora should be safe to include software for encoding and decoding of MP3 by then.

Re:Welcome to 1999

[caseih]

You've been around Slashdot since nearly the beginning so you should know this is clearly untrue. MP3 support in Linux back in the early 2000s wouldn't have made a bit of difference to overall Linux adoption. In fact many distros ignored the IP issues and simply included the codec without paying for a license. It would be nice to have a clear explanation of why they feel it's okay to ship an implementation of this patented algorithm now vs a few years ago. This is of course ignoring the fact that there should never have been a software patent on something like mp3 playback in the first place.

Linux has always been held back by the same things its always been held back by. It's an OS by geeks for geeks with a learning curve, bickering developers, petty egos, and contradictory goals. And more importantly there's the Windows/Office hegemony which still exists to this day, though it's weakening somewhat with MS's move to put Office in the cloud and sell subscriptions. Unlike Linux distributions and desktop environment developers, MS has always understood who their customer was. At least they used to.

Re:Welcome to 1999

[93 Escort Wagon]

Back in the early 2000s, it probably didn't matter since the typical Linux user knew how to work around stuff like this. Part of being a desktop Linux user was learning how to figure out the "little annoyances" - how to get wifi working, how to get your desktop scanner functional, getting your computer to sleep/hibernate, etc. Heck, I remember rebuilding the gnome-games rpm so it would include the games Red Hat removed over concerns about licensing issues...

But now, at least at our university - I see a lot of desktop Linux users who are about as knowledgeable as a typical Mac or Windows user. Stuff like ssh tunneling completely flummoxes them. Given that mp3 is still quite prevalent, this is a good thing for those sorts of Linux users.

On a side note... it's sort of funny that, nowadays, very few of the people I know who do know a lot about Linux actually use it as their primary desktop OS - most of them are Mac users, with the majority of the rest running some flavor of bsd.

Re:Why has it taken [all] this long?

[knorthern knight]

> So if the community wouldn't pay to license in the past, I take it they are willing now?

Nope. It's just that the mp3-decoding patents have expired, so there is no need for a licence now. https://www.tunequest.org/a-bi...

Some patents for mp3-encoding are still in effect, but they expire by the end of 2017. Expect Redhat to ship mp3-encoders then.

Re: Why has it taken [all] this long?

[dohzer]

So all we need now is for Disney to step in and extend the patent to 90 years?

Re:Why has it taken [all] this long?

[UnknownSoldier]

Ad hominem much?

It is myopic materialistic leeches like yourself that want to hold society and Science hostage with paywalls, pretend you can patent math, inflict your bullshit copy protection schemes so that legitimate consumers can't backup their property meanwhile the pirates already laugh at your stupidity because they are "kracked" you nonsense, try to outlaw libraries for sharing knowledge, sue people for sharing CD's because you didn't get your precious "cut", bully and badger people for sharing numbers with frivolous lawsuits about Imaginary Property because you are too stupid too understand numbers can represent anything, try to claim ownership of DNA even thought you didn't _invent_ it, etc. all because you worship the false god of Greed.

See I can play the retarded game of ad hominems too.

Maybe if you would play more attention to some of the greatest minds this world has ever seen you might actually get a clue stick:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

-- Thomas Jefferson

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

-- Sir Isaac Newton

But you would rather fuck everyone over to make a quick buck. Who gives a shit about my fellow man, right? They are just resources to be exploited. Who cares if I con people into buying over-priced rocks. Your false profit (sic.) is P. T. Barnum and his bible is "There's a sucker born every minute"

One day you will eventually realize that relationships are more valuable then money.

The questions is -- will you realize this before or after you die?

Because one day you WILL lose everything -- and the only thing that carries over into the next life is how well, or poorly, you treated everyone.

So spare me the anticapitalist claptrap.

When the fuck are you going to grow up?

Vorbis is obsolete

[mister_playboy]

also there's ogg vorbis and flac. MP3 can die in a fire.

Vorbis has been superseded by Opus.

Re: Why has it taken [all] this long?

[mattdm]

No secret deals, double or otherwise. Fedora does not work like that.

I mean, except for our deal with the Knights Templar to make systemd the one true init system of the new world order. That one, we did do, but it's triple-secret, so can only be revealed in Slashdot comments.