Re: realplay.el interface with Real Player v. 1879

[Richard Stallman]

You have made a series of true statements which don't relate to the
point.  I think we are not talking about the same thing.

    >     mplayer does not encourage the use of proprietary codecs.
    >
    > What are the facts on which you base that conclusion?

    For a lot of people it is important that they can watch DVDs or listen
    to their favorite radio on the computer (just to mention two examples).

That may be true, but it doesn't support your statement
that mplayer does not encourage the use of proprietary codecs.

    mplayer and libavcodec give you this possibility on a GNU system.

That may be true but it doesn't support that statement either.

Those two statements simply do not relate to whether mplayer
encourages use of proprietary codecs.

    It also supports free codecs.

I believe you, but that has nothing to do with whether mplayer
encourages use of proprietary codecs.

    A mplayer installation w/o any binary only codecs works pretty good for
    most of the media files.

That too has nothing to do with whether mplayer encourages use of
proprietary codecs.

    No one forces you to use the binary only codecs,

That is surely true, but it is beside the point.  The question is
whether mplayer _recommends_ these binary-only codecs, not whether it
_requires_ you to install them.


If installing or reading about mplayer is _likely_ to lead people
to install non-free codecs, we should not suggest that people
read about mplayer.