Friends

Why the Linux media player i.e kaffeine and someother players which are default in OS does not play the

MP3
MPEG
AVI

and etc., why so using media player in Linux is illegal.

If so iam installing Xine, VLC in my system makes me criminal. Actually they all are free to download and install. So, What is the concept for them any one explain, why they don't include mediaplayer (some of the linux distributions).

Kaffeine, Totem etc. don't play much of anything, they're merely front-ends to a chosen backend (usually Xine or GStreamer) that does the job. Those usually work with the various formats through extra libraries/plugins, and those plugins (or some of them) may not be installed by default, and the reasons may be many. A lot of the formats are not "free" or open, so some Linux distributions drop them off (by default) because of that already; with some there may be legal issues in some countries, and thus the distribution maintainers leave the user with an option to install the extra pieces if it's legal in the country where the user lives. Some players may come with the needed codecs built-in, more or less, but it doesn't change the point: if you are allowed to use and distribute them in your country, you can install them, otherwise probably not.

If there were no legal issues, known or potential, you would get them. But do understand that you don't pay anything for them (if you use free-of-charge distributions), and the maintainers know that different parts of world have different laws that might or might not affect those parts of the system, so in the end they can't do much else than either take a risk---which they don't want to do---or leave the option for you.

However if you paid for the system, that money could be used to buy legal rights to use the non-free/open parts in the operating system, and this is what some do.

i am using kaffeine in Vector Linux its included. ..

This has nothing to do with legality, but rather with what distros choose to include by default.

However, there do exist codecs that may not be "legal" in some places, however, it's not much of an issue because all Window$ media players have packs that include them as well. If doing this in Linux is illegal, then it is illegal on Window$ too. But, it's not really in most places.

It is not legal to distribute mp3 player in the US because of software patents. It is legal for Microsoft to distribute them on windows because they have a license. If you are in the US, you can download it from foreign servers and I believe it is legal for you to download it, but you don't have the right to distribute it. Don't bother about it too much. Just use ogg or just download the mp3 codecs. This is just legal non-sense and you have no risk at all on your side. They just cannot sue you. this is just some greedy lawyers trying to make money from other greedy corporations.

Ogg would indeed be good, except that it's annoyingly difficult to get a good, nice and cheap-ish portable audio player that supports ogg format naturally, without installing a custom-tailored operating system on it..or that's how it goes here at least. Only very few models are available, if any, and those that sometimes can be bought are either expensive or just not fit for the job---not as fit as the numerous mp3/wma-players, anyway (and as long as the portable ogg players are rare, there's no good reason to store music in ogg format if it's intended to be carried along sometimes). I never quite got why they support wma but not ogg..oh well.

The legal issues..yeah, I doubt if anybody is crazy enough to start a lawcase against an audio or video codec for real; if the case ever ended, the outcome would probably not be good nor cheap for anybody involved. But still the "threat" exists, which is bad.

Does Samsung distribute in your country? My very cheap little stick player supports OGG (YP-U3? something like that), why I chose it over more expensive ones

Installing Xine doesn't make you a criminal.

RedHat's choice for not including a lot of audio and video codecs is rather a business decision. RedHat as a company is large enough to get involved in a law suit. A law suit doesn't mean that the charged entity is criminal or has done anything wrong at all. SCO has forced a law suit against the whole Linux world based on bogus arguments and it took years before the case was dropped. Even so it did cost a lot of of money for everyone involved (lawyers, transfers, documentation gathering) . Linux companies simply do not want to waste their money unnecessarily.

Linux Archive

If you want to play restricted formats, and your distribution does not support their codecs, you can purchase a software package that enables the playing of protected content on your Linux distribution. It's called Fluendo.

Excellent information by all, So installing the applications in your system which are satisfying the GPL are not illegal.

I conclude that the applications which are satisfying the GPL license automatically make you to distribute and modify permission. Nothing wrong in that.

So, whatever the application which is there in Website for free i.e distributable.

Installing mediaplayers in my Redhat Enterprise Linux 5 operating system is not illegal.

thanks once again, provide more info if possible