MP3 + Patent issues in Debian

[Kumar Appaiah <akumar@iitm.ac.in>]

Dear Debian users,

While talking about Debian in a LUG meet, someone pointed out that
Debian's distributions could play MP3s out-of-the-box (Etch
included). This is unlike the Fedora/Ubuntu policy of not making
available the (supposedly) patent encumbred codecs (decoders, at
least) by default, on the install CD.

I tried to search for the Debian take on this issue (mailing list
discussion or bug report), but couldn't find the definitive
discussion. Could someone please point me to it?

Thanks.

Kumar
-- 
Kumar Appaiah,
462, Jamuna Hostel,
Indian Institute of Technology Madras,
Chennai - 600 036