On Sun, Nov 24, 2002 at 04:23:53PM +0100, Bill Allombert wrote: > The JPEG commitee has released a press kit about the patend issue, see > <http://www.jpeg.org/newsrel4.html>. > > Could someone that understand legalese make a summary for further discussion > about what to do Debian-wise?
It's a bit of a non-statement. The only part that seems to actually say anything is this: [...] and currently over 20 organisations, holding many patents in this area, have agreed to allow licensed use of their patents and other intellectual property in connection with baseline implementations of this standard free of license fees or royalty fees. If "free of license fees or royalty fees" means actually free, then this shouldn't be a problem. They don't seem to give specifics anywhere, though. Of course, this statement says nothing about patents held by _other_ organizations. In fact, it goes out of its way to say nothing about that. My guess is that the issue is still open. The first paragraph stresses that the committee has received no formal notification of a patent claim. It might be that they have a strategic reason for wanting Forgent Networks to go through ISO's official channels. I think Debian's best strategy is to wait and see some more. Richard Braakman