Re: GR to remove the support for non-free packages

[brian moore <bem@cmc.net>]

On Thu, Jun 08, 2000 at 04:44:00PM +0200, Wojciech Zabolotny wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> What about the packages which are in non-free only because of the 
> country-specific (usually US) patent restrictions?
> They can be used/distributed freely in almost the whole world except
> of single countries, and do not contradict the DFSG.
> This category includes such important things like RSA dependent cryptographic
> packages, software for compressed GIFs and MP3 encoders...

Actually, mp3 -decoders- should all be in non-free as well.  That
Thomson is less likely to sue you than Fraunhoffer doesn't make them
free.  Cheapbytes, by effectively selling things such as xmms, may find
themselves liable for the $1/unit license fee.  Likewise, the zero-cost
license from Thomson only applies to non-commercial usage of mp3
players... which makes it akin to IDEA.

See http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/mp3-licensing-faq.pdf for the details.

Since gpg-idea (with a BSDish license) is counted as non-free for having
a patented algorithm, then all the mp3 players should be moved to
non-free as well.

-- 
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