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 <osamu@debian.org> Yokohama Japan, GPG-key: A8061F32
.''`. Debian Reference: post-installation user's guide for non-developers
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