From Fedora Project Wiki

Forbidden Items

Fedora users and contributors frequently ask others in the community why certain items are not included in Fedora. This page is meant to provide some explanations for the most frequently requested exclusions.

Summary

The Fedora Project strongly encourages using free and open source software. Fedora has licensing guidelines that enforce the following requirements:

  • If it is proprietary, it cannot be included in Fedora.
  • If it is legally encumbered, it cannot be included in Fedora.
  • If it violates United States federal law, it cannot be included in Fedora.

The Fedora Project FAQ and the more informal, unofficial [1] provide useful answers on commonly asked questions. However, the unofficial site is not associated with or supported by the Fedora Project. You can find many interesting things using a search engine like Google . OtherRepositories might contain software that has been not been included in the official Fedora software repository.

The proprietary software and drivers discussed may be available from the respective owners and other vendors. Fedora Project instead highly recommends that you support the right vendors and get hardware that can work with completely free and open source software.

Community Participation

There are several areas in which more community participation can significantly enhance Fedora. Refer to the Join page for potential contributions and Fedora Wishlist for some examples. If you are interested in maintaining other software packages in Fedora see the PackageMaintainers page.

Current Legal Issues

There are several items under discussion on the Legal Issues page that may be added to or removed from this page when a final decision is reached.

MP3 Support

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MP3 encoding and decoding support is not included in any Fedora application because MP3 is heavily patented in several regions including the United States. The patent holder is unwilling to give an unrestricted patent grant, as required by the GPL. Other platforms might have paid the royalty and/or included proprietary software. Other Linux distributions not based in a region affected by the patent might ship MP3 decoders/encoders or they might have included proprietary software. However, Fedora cannot and does not include MP3 decoders/encoders in order to serve the goal of providing and supporting only free and open source software that is not restricted by software patents by default.

Fedora Suggests: If possible, use patent unrestricted formats such as Ogg Vorbis (a lossy audio codec that has better quality than MP3), or FLAC (a lossless audio codec).

More Information...

NVIDIA Accelerated Graphics Drivers

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The NVIDIA graphics drivers are proprietary, and many kernel developers consider this driver to violate the GPL license of the kernel. Fedora does not include proprietary software.

Fedora Suggests: Consider using a graphics adapter from Intel or any other manufacturer that provides full specifications or source code. Note that NVIDIA adapters will usually work well using the drivers included with Fedora, but accelerated functions (OpenGL) will not be available.

ATI Accelerated Graphics Drivers

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The ATI graphics drivers are proprietary and many kernel developers consider this driver to violate the GPL license of the kernel. Fedora does not include proprietary software.

Stop (medium size).png ATI has provided specifications for their recent cards and also released drivers which are expected to support full 3D acceleration in the future. Fedora will include these drivers when they are more functional and robust.

NDISwrapper network driver

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NDISwrapper works by bridging Windows drivers into kernel space; many kernel developers consider this to violate the GPL license of the kernel. Furthermore, NDISwrapper does not work with standard kernel features, such as 4K stacks, and exposes the user to binary-only drivers in kernel space that the user cannot modify or fix. Furthermore, NDISwrapper does not work at all without the Windows drivers, which 1) are not redistributable, and therefore cannot be shipped in Fedora, and 2) are not open source, and therefore will not be shipped in Fedora.

Fedora Suggests: Try using the in-kernel drivers that support many common wireless cards, such as Intel or Broadcom wireless adapters.

Real Media (and Player)

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Real Media encoding and decoding support is not included in any Fedora application because it is heavily patented in several regions including the United States. The patent holder is unwilling to give an unrestricted patent grant, as required by the GPL. Other platforms might have paid the royalty, or included proprietary software. Other Linux distributions not based in a region affected by the patent might ship Real Media decoders and encoders. However, Fedora cannot and does not ship Real Media decoders and encoders in order to serve the goal of providing and supporting only free and open source software by default.

Fedora Suggests: Try using patent unrestricted formats such as Ogg Vorbis (a lossy audio codec), Ogg Theora (a lossy video codec), or FLAC (a lossless audio codec)

DVD Playback

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DVD playback (of CSS encrypted DVDs) may be a violation of the United States DMCA , because it may be considered circumventing a copyright protection mechanism. Additionally, MPEG2 is a patented codec, so even DVDs without encryption cannot be played.

Fedora Suggests: Using patent unrestricted formats such as Ogg Theora is highly recommended when encoding videos.

More Information...

Cryptography

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Some cryptographic packages are not included within Fedora due to US export restrictions and patent concerns.

Fedora Suggests: Consider using non-restricted cryptographic methods instead.

Sun's Java

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Sun's Java is now under a free software license but still has some binary encumbrances which are being removed or replaced incrementally. Red Hat is working with Sun to improve free and open source Java. Fedora 9 includes OpenJDK from Sun with encumbered portions replaced by the IcedTea Project and Fedora 8 includes IcedTea too. Also Fedora includes and actively develops GCJ which can be used to run many Java programs and supports a different set of features and architectures. See the ["JavaFAQ"] for more details.

VMware

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VMware is proprietary software. Fedora does not include proprietary software. Fedora includes and develops several virtualization technologies which may provide an alternative.

Adobe/Macromedia Flash Player

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Adobe Flash Player is proprietary software. Fedora does not include proprietary software. There are open source alternatives including Swfdec and Gnash ; both are available in Fedora's package repositories.

NOTE: Firefox's plugin service currently doesn't installs Adobe Flash Player if it is needed because of a bug in Firefox. You can follow instructions how to install it manully.

More Information...

Adobe Acrobat Reader

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Adobe Acrobat Reader is proprietary software. Fedora does not include proprietary software.

Fedora Suggests: Consider using open source alternatives instead. Alternative PDF (Acrobat file format) readers are provided for the GNOME desktop (evince, developed and maintained by Fedora developers), the KDE 4 desktop (okular), the KDE 3 desktop (kpdf), and for generic X-Window graphical interfaces (xpdf).

szip

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The szip license is too restrictive for inclusion in Fedora.

Fedora Suggests: Use other open source alternatives such as gzip and bzip2 formats.

Moonlight

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There are serious concerns about Moonlight, due to Microsoft and Novell's public statements around its inclusion in their "covenant". Accordingly, this technology (with, or without codecs), is considered too risky, and is not acceptable for inclusion in Fedora.

See:
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/moonlight.mspx
http://blogs.cnet.com/5530-13505_1-0-10.html?forumID=166&messageID=2490312&threadID=228078