Re: nomarch-1.2 - Problems with RLE patent 4,586,027
On Fri, May 17, 2002 at 11:58:28AM +1200, Matthew Grant <grantma@debian.org> was heard to say:
> Could you please withdraw the nomarch package from the main upload queue.
> This thing belongs in non-free.
If it violates a patent, shouldn't it be removed entirely?
> Sorry about this. I have tried to be careful. Who would have thought that
> such an obvious compression technique (Run Length Encoding - count number
> of bytes in a row of same value, store count and byte value) is covered by
> a software patent?
Hm, don't SDL and OpenGL...errr, I mean, Mesa...both use RLE compression
to accelerate some blits? Should we remove them too?
I have to say that this patent is pretty despicable, even for a software
patent. For people who didn't bother following the URL:
"The first one covers run length encoding in its most primitive form: a
length byte followed by the repeated byte."
Daniel, who thinks he "invented" that one sometime in junior high
--
/-------------------- Daniel Burrows <dburrows@debian.org> -------------------\
| The Turtle Moves! |
\------- Listener-supported public radio -- NPR -- http://www.npr.org --------/
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
Reply to: