mp4/wma on by default in 1.8

Jeff Mitchell mitchell at kde.org
Thu Jun 23 20:00:53 CEST 2011


Can we please finally do this?

It was turned off by default somewhere along the 1.7 development series
due to (as it turns out, bogus) concerns by Fedora Legal over patent
issues. It was never turned on before 1.7 was released, and the stated
reason not to turn it on for 1.7.x was to not deviate from 1.7 behavior.
I felt this was bogus, as the reason for them being off was basically a
bug in the process, and said so at the time, but I haven't pressed the
issue.

Meanwhile I continue to see this cause problems all over the place.
Windows users of cross-platform applications built with mingw32
libraries that don't enable (probably because they aren't even aware of
it) the optional helpers wonder why they see more songs on Linux than
the same collection on Windows. Same problem with people porting
applications to MeeGo, which also simply builds the default.

Not to mention user confusion over why an application built on Distro A
sees B songs but on Distro X sees Y songs.

Even worse, you get packagers figuring that there must be a legal/patent
reason that it's disabled by default, even though the legal bits have
already been stewed over and been given the OK by Fedora Legal.

Can we fix this mess in 1.8?

Thanks,
Jeff


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