I claim not being expert on this subject. But this argument seems rehash of ones done in debian-legal and debian-user.
On Fri, Jun 02, 2006 at 05:23:51PM +0200, Cesare Leonardi wrote: ... > Remaining on the multimedia side, if mp3 is covered by numerous patents > that implementing a codec cannot be avoided > (http://www.mp3licensing.com/patents/index.html), then every free mp3 > codec has problems in country where the patents have legal value. And so > this should be a problem for the Debian project. And the same is true > for AAC, MP4 and so on. implimenting codec for "decoder" or "encoder", these are different things as I understood. Enforcement has been different. ... > Since now i haven't really understood what makes vlc, xine, gstreamer, > ffmpeg, ect. acceptable in Debian. Or, that is the same, what makes > mplayer, lame and similar, not acceptable in Debian. > For me this continue to be a mistery and an incoerency issue. > > Reading some discussion regarding the patent issue (expecially on the > multimedia side) and Debian, i have deduced that: > - if there are "doubtful" software already in Debian, they usually stay > in. Otherwise they do not enter. > - if something is covered by a patent that is not enforced by the ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > holder, it could enter or stay in Debian. That seems to be most important practice as I observed. Question on such patent and even obscinity issues are "Can Debian bear liabilities associated with inclusion of these packages and enjoy sufficient benefits?" Very practical rule, I think, seems to be at work. > > It is a matter destined to arise again and again until Debian will > adopt a clear and official (read written) position on that problem. > > Indeed a difficult decision because following the radical decision to > not accept software covered by patents, could render the Debian system > less pleasant and with more frustrated user (that eventually will prefer > to abandon Debian). Whereas accepting them will render Debian less free > software friendly. > > I am for the radical way, to keep Debian completely free, libre. > If necessary: www.debian-multimedia.org ;-) > And i'm writing this while listening an online radio through an mp3 > stream with vlc... *Sigh!* You can find some debian packages of such kind http://www.rarewares.org/index.html I have not tried this site much though. So YMMV. Osamu ~\^o^/~~~ ~\^.^/~~~ ~\^*^/~~~ ~\^_^/~~~ ~\^+^/~~~ ~\^:^/~~~ ~\^v^/~~~ +++++ Osamu Aoki <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Yokohama Japan, GPG-key: A8061F32 .''`. Debian Reference: post-installation user's guide for non-developers : :' : http://qref.sf.net and http://people.debian.org/~osamu `. `' "Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software" --- Social Contract -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]