Geoffrey Lee wrote:
> But I don't know what is the usefulness of moving it to main, even if it
> is a useful tool in the development process, because general users don't
> need rpmproc. They just want a nice desktop and play Quake :)
Well, the idea of main is that one shouldn't have to use anything in
contribs to get a decent distribution. The same could be said about
moving all *-devel to contrib because the average user could care less! :)
> libcss. I'm not sure what is the status on opendivx. But: if it does not
> allow modification of sources then this is going to be bad. It's a wee bit
> like qmail, certain folks say that it's good and that it's a rock, but since
> it does not allow the modification of sources we've never gotten it into
> the main distribution.
I think we are clear on this libcss. I know an arrest was made, but I
don't think a conviction -- yet. Anyway, I am not up for being arrested
this morning :)
> For contribs or if we host a page where .spec can be downloaded because
> we have trouble with the source, then that would be Ok. For main, then no,
> because main should be compilable and usable by itself. Having a page
> with .spec files of non-distributable packages for download has been talked
> about before I believe, at least I think I remember someone asked for a jdk
> spec ..
I don't think Mandrake would be for adding such a page. For a user, yes,
it's no problem. Debian at least has non-US, which includes code legal
in other countried but not here. Some code, like kerneli which I have
always wanted to try, is legal, but is illegal to download and
distribute, but not to download alltogether. But I think the encryption
laws have become more relaxed in recent years. However, after what
happened at Defcon, I think any U.S. programmer should be scared :(
Or even one who is simply in possession of the wrong code by accident
because the laws seem to be not so clear.
I really think the .nosrc.rpms could be provided for people willing to
take the risk.
>
>
>>I think I can at least upload a new libavifile. This is GPL and seems to
>>be perfectly legal. At least this would give a starting point to some
>>people.
>>
>>
>
> Hold your horses... I'm not so sure. The avifile, or, at least the one
> that is distributed with xmovie, has lame, which in turn, uhh, well, we know
> what's wrong ... argh.
>
>
All I read of avifile is:
This project includes GSM 6.1 audio decoder, which is taken from XAnim.
XAnim is licensed as 'free for non-commercial use' - not compatible with
(L)GPL. That part needs to be rewritten to resolve this issue.
But xanim is distributed with Cooker so this is OK. If he means that
this decoder is linked with the player, well it is his player, so
technically by sayinging this he really isn't in violation of this own
Copyright unless he says so! (Isn't that weird?) However, I don't see
why the rest aren't distributed as plugins so you could just remove the
ones you didn't want for various legal reasons.
Anyway, I don't see lame there, so avifile looks OK to me. As for lame,
the license mentions that all ISO code has been removed (so this is
great) but also says people in some countries (US?) must obtain a
license to use the code... argh!
--
Sincerely,
David Walluck
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
