But also from this I learned that Cisco did a really chad move a decade ago and open-sourced an H.264 implementation, and distributes binary builds of this module that pass on their MPEG-LA patent pool license to end users ([*] for specific types of use).
So effectively, it's an open source codec implementation, with binaries that should be reproducible from said source, but the binaries also convey immunity from patent bullshit, at no cost to the end user. That's pretty neat.