[kde-linux] Re: mp3 playback within Firefox?

[Duncan]

Duncan posted on Tue, 14 Dec 2010 03:44:16 +0000 as excerpted:

> mp3 is still patent encumbered (just a few more years... 2016, IIRC)

FWIW, Wikipedia says 2012 in the US for most, due to publication of a near-
complete spec in 1991, a 1-year pre-patent publishing limit, and the 20-
year patent life, tho there are a few more questionable patents and 
encoding-only patents extending thru 2017.

So 2012... come quickly!  (I remember when the gif patents finally expired 
and everyone could finally rest easy with it, libungif and libgif could 
finally be remerged, etc.  I'm sure I'm not the only one looking forward 
to 2012, when the worst of mp3's patents expire as well, and then 2017, 
when the issue with mp3s should be finally settled once and for all.)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman