Re: MPlayer DFSG compatibility status
Josselin Mouette <josselin.mouette@ens-lyon.org>:
> > We don't want to receive the endless flow of mails asking about why the
> > newest, apt-get'ed MPlayer doesn't play ASF/WMV files (a very significant
> > part of the streaming media on the Internet).
>
> If we don't want to include this support, this is not your problem. E.g.
> xine in Debian has WMV9 support stripped off, and there would be no
> reason for mplayer to include it if there are legal issues with it.
Should this perhaps be mentioned in the package description?
In http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/xine-ui.html there is
no mention of WMV, but there is a link to http://xine.sf.net/ for a
more complete list of supported audio/video formats, and
http://xine.sf.net/ says that xine decodes WMV.
I'm not saying you should write "Don't bother getting this crippled
Debian package; get the upstream source instead", but I think it's
only fair to tell people if functionality has been stripped off.
You could include a link to freepatents.org by way of explanation.
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