Delirium wrote:
It's quite recent: about 10 minutes old. I just updated my system, and the various MP3 playback things are all of course still in the official repository. Debian pulls things pretty aggressively when legal troubles arise, and there's been a lot of discussion about MP3 but nothing's been pulled. I didn't follow the discussion, but there was quite a bit two years ago when that Vorbis open letter came out, and I assume by the lack of action over such a lengthy period of time that the discussion's ended in favor of "no legal problems with MP3 playback".
So what exactly does that mean? Does it mean the MP3 decoding patent is invalid, or does it mean that Debian can continue to use the software that was written before the patent was enforced, or something else?