enshrined in patent law is the right for anyone to implement a single instance of a patent, so that they may improve on it. source code that's downloaded and t

enshrined in patent law is the right for anyone to implement a single instance of a patent, so that they may improve on it. source code that's downloaded and then compiled thus constitutes "a single instance". if the fuckers at broadcom had stopped for one second and thought, "we really should release the full source and just let people get on with it, because after all this is about education", then there wouldn't BE any need for them to collect royalties. instead they went "we make money from this, therefore we should continue to exploit school children". broadcom DOES NOT have to distribute binary versions of their CODECs. they COULD have chosen instead to release full source code under libre licenses. the fact that they are distributing binaries tells you everything you need to know.