On Wednesday 25 January 2006 17:40, Joe Wreschnig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Wed, 2006-01-25 at 17:08 +1100, Russell Coker wrote: > > MP3 software does not belong in Debian/main. Unlike many patents the > > MPEG patents probably have a good basis. > > To make it clear, this is a *radical* divergence from our previous > position. If other distributions start shipping the Fluendo plugin, it > is also a major step backwards in usability.
Have we consulted a lawyer about this? > > As far as I am aware OGG media is a good alternative to MPEG in every > > technical measure. OGG is not as well supported by 3rd party devices (no > > support in iPod for example) but there are devices which support it > > (iRiver as an example - incidentally the iRiver gives better sound > > quality according to the experts and allows recording so is better than > > the iPod anyway). > > It's clear to me you've never had to use an iRiver's Ogg support. It > fails outside a limited bitrate range, drains battery faster, does not > read metadata, and is not available on all devices. Newer iRivers also > use a proprietary communications protocol that is not yet supported in > Debian. Finally, the recording is MP3 only. iRiver will have more incentive to support OGG well if Linux distributions take a stand on this issue. > > By continuing to support MPEG in Debian/main we are decreasing the > > support of OGG. > > By continuing to support MS Word .doc in Debian/main, we are decreasing > the support of OpenDocument. So what? Users have millions, billions of > files in these formats. If we can support them, we should. If there was a patent on the MS file formats then I would advocate removing support from Debian. > > This also applies to mpc123. > > The Musepack developers are of the opinion that they no longer infringe > on any patents, as the algorithm has diverged wildly from the MPEG-1 > Layer 2 algorithm upon which it is based. It's on at least as good legal > ground as every other audio format in Debian. So please leave it out of > this discussion. Do we have any legal advice on this? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
