On Sat, Jul 16, 2005 at 11:43:27AM +0200, Diego Biurrun wrote: > On Fri, Jul 15, 2005 at 09:47:22PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: > > AFAIK there is no public evidence that Red Hat's (which is who I assume > > you're principally referring to) decision not to ship mp3-playing software > > is grounded in concerns about actively enforced patents. > FWIW, I've discussed this with a Red Hat employee at last year's > LinuxTag. The reason they stay away from multimedia stuff is that they > are afraid of being sued over patent infringement. They currently have > a lot of money in the bank, which makes them an interesting target. Yes, the more assets a company has, the more paranoid they become about protecting them. "Fear of being sued over patent infringement" doesn't imply a belief that any particular patent is valid, or that any particular piece of software is infringing -- it merely implies a belief that a certain class of software is, as a whole, more likely to lead to pesky, expensive lawsuits. And lawsuits are almost always pesky and expensive, regardless of their validity. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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