• bjorney@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Most distros have a checkbox during the installer that will add non-free components. It’s a separate EULA you need to agree to so they can’t do it for you.

    You may not care, but the distro provider’s legal team absolutely cares about not getting sued for automatically bundling components with an incompatible license agreement

      • arglebargle@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        MPEG LA is (now Via Licensing Alliance) has been active in collecting fees and defending patents. There is no reason to assume they won’t go after distros, particularly those who can pay given that they are willing to take on anyone else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG_LA

          • arglebargle@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Because those distros have (as we are talking about) distanced themselves from the patent encumbered codecs? When Google tried to get behind VP8, MPEG LA was right there to try and stop them by trying to get them into the pool.

            Edit: I should have said many didn’t Fedora opted out of compiling mesa with hardware accell, and it seems others did too recently. But that means it was there the whole time. I guess most distros, that have any money, are going to want shelter from lawsuits.