Raspberry Pi Forums

Hello
I was wondering if theres a way to have GPU support for mpeg2 without buying license? I live in europe, in my country we dont have such ridicules things as software patents. I feel abit ackward to pay for something that is free

http://www.raspberrypi.com/mpeg-2-license-key/
you have to pay
did you pay for your RPI?
one of the reasons it is so cheep is because you have not paid for all the licenses you need.

ok again why I have to pay if in my country there are no software patents and by my country law I can use it without paying

which country is this?
these are hardware patents anyway

thid wrote:ok again why I have to pay if in my country there are no software patents and by my country law I can use it without paying

because everyone has to pay to use that function or the hardware wouldn't have been licensed for sale. Broadcom (The GPU manufacturer) don't care what your local legislation has to say regarding the licensing, as far as they are concerned you have to pay for it if you want to use it.

thid wrote:by my country law I can use it without paying

I suggest you get your country's lawyers to contact the Raspberry Pi Foundation and Broadcom to press this case on your behalf.

Contact details are here, to save you having to search for them: http://www.raspberrypi.org/contact-us/

I realise you want to claim that there is - for you - an apparently important principle at stake, but in practice is a one-off payment of 3 Eur really an issue?

At least one of the MPEG-2 patents (with my name on it) is not a software patent.

(No, I didn't get rich on it - less than US$5 recompense from my employer.)

thid wrote:Hello
I was wondering if theres a way to have GPU support for mpeg2 without buying license? I live in europe, in my country we dont have such ridicules things as software patents. I feel abit ackward to pay for something that is free

It was never free, the stuff or software you have been buying actually simply included the price of license fees in the price.
There is VLC which uses reverse engeneered codices but they circumvent the law, the raspberry PI foundation cannot afford to circumvent the law, so you have to pay the actual license fees.

You can have GPU support for mpeg2 without buying a license, by writing the codec yourself, good luck with that.

Locking thread as it will go nowhere!