Re: [gNewSense-users] More on the mp3 issue

[Anthony Patarini]

"How long for mp3 to end the patent? I mean is  like 10 years? if so it 
should be near.. "

2010 in the USA.

"in my personal opinion, as long there is Ogg, I can care less about 
mp3, if someone gives me a mp3 and my system can't play it, I just 
convert it to Ogg format, this brings me with one idea, whatever we do I 
will support  but if we decide  to not include mp3 support, then we 
should make a script were that users can use to convert to Ogg all their 
media."

In order to do that, we would have to first decode the MP3 and encode 
the output as Ogg Vorbis. For this process to work, we need an MP3 
decoder. However, we can't legally ship one in some parts of the world, 
due to the patent problems we're talking about right now. So, long story 
short, this idea really solves nothing. If you can convert a file to 
Ogg, you could just as well play the file directly. Also, a simple MP3 
to Ogg converter already exists in "Universe" by the name of "mp32ogg". 
You cannot legally use that program in countries that acknowledge 
software idea patents.