MP3
MP3 support in Fedora is widely discussed in the Fedora Community. You may wish to browse some of the Fedora Community Websites for further information and discussion:
Fedora is unable to include encoding and decoding support for the MP3 format because it requires patented technologies and the patent holder has not provided licenses that are compatible with Fedora's requirements. MP3 is currently the most widely used format for lossy music compression and is widely supported among music players. The MP3 patents are protected by United States law and international treaties, and the Fedora Project will honor the applicable laws and treaties.
For more on the MP3 patents and licensing, visit:
There are Third party repositories which can add MP3 support to many of the media players provided in Fedora repository, but Fedora does not include any such software. Fluendo has released a free GStreamer plugin with suitable licensing for end-users, and this plugin will add MP3 support to the media players in Fedora that use GStreamer as a backend. For more information, refer to
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Installing_the_Fluendo_MP3_plugin
As an alternative to MP3, the Ogg Vorbis audio format is widely supported in Fedora. Support for this format is also freely available for other platforms. This is an entirely unrestricted format with quality that is comparable, if not superior, to MP3. While not as common as players that support MP3, there are a number of portable and home audio devices that support the Ogg Vorbis audio format. See our page about Xiph.Org formats for more information: