Re: Wanted: clarification of current non-US policy.

[Robert Bihlmeyer <robbe@orcus.priv.at>]

Buddha Buck <bmbuck@14850.com> writes:

> My understanding was that non-US/main had three basic classes of 
> packages in it (not necessarily exclusive classes):
[...]
> patent:  Any DFSG-compliant package which implemented algorithms or 
> techniques known to violate US patents that are not enforceable outside 
> of the US.  (ex: GIF-encoders, MP3 encoders, implementations of RSA or 
> IDEA, etc).  I believe it was a policy decision that patents may make a 
> package undistributable, but were not sufficient to make a package 
> non-DFSG -- the author isn't responsible for patent policy.

That's not the case, that stuff seems to end up in non-free. At least
that's the case for GIF & TIFF-encoders (gimp1.1-nonfree,
libmagick*-lzw, ...). RSA is free in non-US, but can't go into
non-free because it is crypto. IDEA is actually free in US, but not in
Europe. There is no MP3 encoder in Debian. There are lame packages
(one made by yours truly) but whether they can be included is not
clear.

So non-US seems to boil down to stuff not exportable from the US:
crypto.

Packages not usable in the US (or some other parts of the world)
should probably be marked with some keyword.

-- 
Robbe