On Fri, Aug 30, 2002 at 10:31:23AM -0400, Joe Drew wrote: > If fraunhofer say that you are allowed to distribute mp3 players for > free (but not for cost), then they must be put in non-free. And since > they have patents all around the world, they can't be put in non-us. It's my interpretation of the DSFG, which I have offered on debian-legal many times in the past without controversy (notable in itself), that we do not hold DFSG-nonfreeness imposed by a patent as rendering a package DFSG-nonfree if the package maintainer or upstream author is not in cahoots with the patent holder in enforcing a DFSG-violating patent license. In other words, if you write some free software, it's not your fault if some company decides 15 minutes or 15 years later that they had a patent on an algorithm you used, and sent packs of lawyers out to eradicate your software from the planet. So, the issue for Debian is not -- as long as it's honestly licensed DFSG-freely by the author -- "do we move it into non-free?" but "can we ship it at all?" I think it would be fair to tar mpg321 with the brush of "non-free" when that clearly wasn't your intent when you wrote it. Having a giant corporation smash your First Amendmendment[1] right to express yourself via computer code is quite punishment enough. [1] Okay, so you're Canadian, UDHR or whatever. I'm perfectly happy to stand up for the First Amendment rights even of people who aren't governed by the U.S. Constitution. That makes me doubly-damned according to the Republican Party, I think. "*FREE SPEECH* for *FOREIGNERS*!?!??? WHAT KIND OF GODLESS HEATHEN COMMONIST[sic] CRAP IS THIS?" -- G. Branden Robinson | Exercise your freedom of religion. Debian GNU/Linux | Set fire to a church of your branden@debian.org | choice. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
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