Cisco has released a gratis open source H.264 implementation under the BSD license.

[Robert Burmeister]

   Note for:
   multimedia/x264
   multimedia/ffmpeg
   multimedia/mplayer
   multimedia/vlc
   www/firefox
   graphics/gnash
   net/opal
   [1]https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2013/10/30/video-interoperability-on-t
   he-web-gets-a-boost-from-ciscos-h-264-codec/

     The most popular codec, [2]H.264, is [was] patent-encumbered and
     [3]licensed by MPEG LA, under terms that prevent distributing it
     with open source products including Firefox. Cisco has [4]announced
     today that they are going to [5]release a gratis, high quality, open
     source H.264 implementation -- along with gratis binary modules
     compiled from that source and hosted by Cisco for download. This
     move enables any open source project to incorporate Cisco's H.264
     module without paying MPEG LA license fees.

References

   1. https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2013/10/30/video-interoperability-on-the-web-gets-a-boost-from-ciscos-h-264-codec/
   2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC
   3. http://www.mpegla.com/main/default.aspx
   4. http://blogs.cisco.com/collaboration/open-source-h-264-removes-barriers-webrtc
   5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre