...because there is no legal reason for you NOT to be able to play those formats. Which brings us back to "proprietary codecs aren't installed by default". And AGAIN, playing DVD's IS NOT ILLEGAL. The libdvdcss for Linux is open-sourced, and free. Even if it WAS illegal, under fair-use policies, we go back to "Why would it be illegal for you to play a DVD you legally purchased??"
Care to name some names, here?
No, there isn't, which is why you were told that several times, very plainly. And if you want to remove ALL the codecs, feel free...run whatever software management tool you have in your distro, search/select/remove, and you're done.
The 108 comments from random people on the Internet? Pay more attention to the ARTICLE, and not the commentary.
Wrong. You purchase a DVD, which means you purchase one license for the content ON that DVD, period. And using your analogy, you'd have to pay someone a fee in order for you to be able to learn the language yourself, and skip the translator. And we're AGAIN back to "the Linux libdvdcss is free/open-sourced"..
You indeed ARE defending unreasonable restrictions. Don't want the codecs, then delete them all through your software manager. Or buy a copy of Windows and put it on there, or give the computer away with no OS at all.
And loading VLC is PERFECTLY legal...AGAIN, MS Windows 8 ships with the library already, just not the PLAYER. Loading an open-source player to use what you already paid for is perfectly legal, thanks.
No one is getting any 'temperature' by this 'debate'. You asked a question and it was answered, but you KEPT ASKING IT, which is a great way to frustrate folks.
...which takes care of mplayer..sometimes, on some distros, depending on how it's installed. Does the "don't load ANY multimedia players" option ever enter your mind? Takes care of all of that, wouldn't it???

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You can get the DVD css unencrypt code on a t-shirt if needed:

http://www.jedihawk.com/wp-content/u...k_188x2400.jpg

If you really must give away something that won't allow the recipient to do something they're likely to need to do (e.g. play music, watch videos), I hope you can also give them instructions on how to do it!

If you're really that woried about including improperly licensed codecs in PCs you're giving away, just install Fedora on them. I know there are other distros that don't include proprietary codecs, I just don't use any that are as clear about it as Fedora. If you want your PC recipients to be easily able to download the propretary codecs, you can enable the rpmfusion and atrpms yum repositories.

FWIW, while writing this I realized that my installed versions of libdvdcss are several Fedora versions old, so I just updated them. Thanks for the memory jog!

Thanks. Jesse Smith of DistroWatch says in part, Generally speaking, I was happy with gNewSense 3.0. Being based on Debian, the distribution can be counted on to provide both stability and amazing performance. The distribution is lean, fast and uncluttered. The flip side to this is gNewSense's system installer and default package management tools are geared more toward experienced users and will probably provide a steep learning curve to novice Linux users...The fact that the distribution can play most multimedia formats and handled Flash content fairly well is a testament of the power of free and open source software. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNewSense

Maybe i will try it .

I have a Compaq nx9005 laptop that i tried to run Fedora 20, Xubuntu, and Lubuntu 13 on, but Fedora Yum continually got stuck in loop, yum_childtask.p being locked, a problem i found many had had with various analysis resulting but no solutions, while the latter two refused to connect via a simple DSL connection. I liked Xubuntu the best out of the three. So i went with Peppermint Linux, which gives you a option not to install proprietary software. I do not know about the legal status of the inclusion of other proprietary stuff, from firmware to Firefox extensions, the latter of which should not be a problem.

Sorry for not getting back sooner as i was busy.

I read that some do: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/inde...t-1234776.html And assumed that since PCLinuxOS/LXDE live CD i can play MPEG2; WMV2, WMA, MPEG-4 AVC; Mp3 then it did as well.

That article was brief as I recall, while posters, like yourself, can have some valid input.

OK, I would have to look at the issue again, but it seems the companies that got these laws passed do not subscribe to your reasoning, even if they should.
I do not want to defend them if unreasonable, any more than a law that says i cannot work on a car in the street, or use or allow to be used a kerosene heater (MA), but i still try to obey them.

I was going by info such as "Eliminating the codecs for a Windows 8 DVD player kept costs down and made for more parity across the different OS versions." (http://searchenterprisedesktop.techt...ut-its-fixable) "An MPEG-2 decoder. The licensing rights for the MPEG-2 standard are made up of a pool of patents contributed by their inventors. The pool itself is managed by MPEG LA, which collects and distributes royalties on behalf of the patent owners, under a master license agreement. Those rights cost $2 per device. The maker of a cheap DVD player sold at Costco pays $2 per unit for the MPEG-2 rights. Microsoft pays An OEM PC maker who licenses Windows from Microsoft must pay $2 in MPEG-2 licensing fees to enable DVD playback in every copy of Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate." (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/if-vl...microsoft/4962) And which deals with the VLC player also "...Microsoft, originally reported that the Media Center and Pro Pack contain codecs for both DVD and Blu-ray movie playback. This is false. They only facilitate DVD playback, not Blu-ray.. " (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...lity,3341.html).

..which takes care of mplayer..sometimes, on some distros, depending on how it's installed. Does the "don't load ANY multimedia players" option ever enter your mind? Takes care of all of that, wouldn't it???

I know that before I posted, and since I mentioned it some distros are said to include some by default then it should be clear that the opt out was insufficient.

aa
See above. I actually did install it but Yum got stuck in a loop, as another process was locked and would not close except via Task Manager. Many others asked about this problem online, with various non-solutions offered, so i up tried other lightweights, ending up with Peppermint. But I liked Xubuntu so much that I plan to install it on a Travelmate 2480 laptop i have, alongside XP, as it quickly was able to connect via Alfa USB wireless on that one.

Glad you found something that worked.

Amen. Thanks for the help.