I admit I do not follow this very closely, it's just not important to me.
However, I think the "community promise" was the key part of what I read
elsewhere.

MP3 decoding is covered by a US patent, so anyone in the USA, or in a country
which has a reciprocal patent agreement with the US, must pay a royalty for the
software to play MP3s. It's my understanding that some versions of Windows are
covered, since Microsoft has paid the royalty and buried that in the cost of
Windows. (The same applies to DVD playback.)