I don't know about VLC's French connection, but aren't they using x264? In other words, an open source implementation that does run afoul of MPEG-LA licensing in itself. It's also used in a lot of other free software such as Handbrake, which is also in violation.

Much open source software has a ton of stolen and "illegal" content in it in terms of patent violation. IMO, software patents should all be nullified anyway, but while they're still in play...

Will Mozilla be implementing WebM? Google holds patents on it, so IMO, it's still ideologically tainted, even if Google doesn't currently charge anything for it. And it more than likely contains a number of patents represented by MPEG-LA. Can't wait to see this one hit the courts. Though it may not if WebM fizzles completely.

I also wonder how much money Adobe is paying Google to drop direct H.264 support. There's something going on there.