MP3 support in Linux distros?

[Leo Mauler]

I admit I'm still using a rather old distro at home,
Mandrake Official 10.0, but it came with full MP3
support (both as audio files and as the audio format
in a video file).

Someone on another forum lambasted my suggestion that
the XviD video codec would play on any Linux machine
by saying that most distros didn't come with MP3
support, making a lot of XviD videos play in Linux
with no sound.

I went looking and of course he's right, Debian and
Ubuntu don't have it for obvious licensing reasons,
Redhat pulled support for MP3 back in version 8.0 and
never put it back.  Mandriva still includes support
for MP3s.

What exactly is the official policy on MP3s?  Is there
an unwritten policy thats sort of <nudge, nudge, wink,
wink> regarding allowing free software MP3
decoders/encoders?



		
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