[starsinspace]

Does Fedora come with support for playing back common media formats these days? Last time I tried, it didn't even play MP3s, just showing some dialog box about how it can't play that due to patents or something. To solve that IIRC it was needed to add some 3rd-party repository (which is always a bit worrying with having to trust them) to install the codec packages. Is that still the case with Fedora?

[crispinb]

I don't know at what point Fedora loosened up re the FOSS strictures, but the version I installed (30) did have non-free apps/codecs available by default, including for mp3s.

[vetinari]

MP3 patents expired in 2017, so Fedora does include them now. So did AAC and AC3.

[crispinb]

Yes of course. Wasn't there also some policy change at some point regarding what's available in the store by default? I had a vague memory of that but could be wrong.

Anyway, the upshot is that at least based on my experience (limited as I'm not a big media consumer), media playing does just work OOB with current Fedora.