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In the US, yes. Ubuntu, VLC and the likes are exempt from this sort of nonsense because they are not registered in the US. I don't know what happens when a US b

In the US, yes. Ubuntu, VLC and the likes are exempt from this sort of nonsense because they are not registered in the US. I don't know what happens when a US based company like Dell sells laptops with Ubuntu in the US though. They probably would have made some deals.

simonh 10y ago
That's actually easier for a hardware vendor though because they charge money for the product so can factor in licensing costs. Even aside from free software principles, the problem faced by a distro like Fedora is fitting the square peg of paying licensing fees to patent holders through the round hole of providing their software as a free download. BTW, does anyone know if Canonical still pay licensing fees to cover Ubuntu for this sort of thing? I believe they used to.
digi_owl 10y ago
I seem to recall that when you install Ubuntu you have to specifically check a box to say you want the proprietary and patent encumbered stuff. Likely Dell leave that up to the user to install after unboxing. And that is one reason that Mint got popular, because they took Ubuntu and bundled that stuff right on the ISO.
- jhasse 10y ago
  VLC is free software but still isn't included in Fedora because of patent issues. Ubuntu includes it (Ubuntu MATE even in the default install).
TD-Linux 10y ago
Being in the EU is not a magical bullet against software patents. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/blackberry-sues-nokia-over-patents-as-its-phone-business-shuts-down/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/blackberry-sues-...