Hi All,
we had similar problem with AGNULA, about mp3 and after an accurate investigation
we have reached the following conclusions (a deliverable on free software will be
soon ready at www.agnula.org):
(Inter alia i suggest to read the following document,
http://web.media.mit.edu/~eds/mpeg-patents-faq )
[quoting from an internal discussion:
1) mp3 (Mpeg-1 layer 3) is not patented per se; the format documents are
public, they are published by www.iso.ch (TR bought them from them)
and these documents describe precisely how the file format is done to
comply to the Mpeg1 layer 3 standard; anybody can build an mp3 file
This is important to understand:
2) there are Fraunhofer and Thompson patents for some encoding
*algorithms* which Free Software encoders may therefore not use;
3) to my knowledge, neither bladeenc nor lame do use these algorithms
(they are mainly for encoding at low bit rate, something these
encoders don't do well - they were'nt designed for that)
4) however, from what I understand Fraunhofer and Thompson oblige
bladeenc and lame developers to distribute *sources* and not
*binaries* to always check that they are not using patented
algorithms (now how's that for another use of source visibility :()
5) so, these encoders may not be distributed in binary-only form,
I did'nt know of any patenting on decoding, but
I may assume that the same concept applies
end of quoting]
NOTE: developing for bladeenc has been stopped by the author who's converting
himself into a ogg user...:-)
I think solution for Debian, and in general would be, untill ogg becomes more
popular:
- dropping mp3 enconders support, and asking applications authors like "audacity"
(a sound editor) to support *export* only for ogg and not mp3. In this way the
number of new encoded mp3 files should start to drop
- mp3 decoders should be supported. Too many mp3 still around, getting read of them
would make Debian less interesting for a number of users
(i dont think they need to go in non-free)
- offer mp3 to ogg convert tools, with big warning
about possible quality loss (BTW i converted an
mp3 --> wav --> ogg and i dint noticed such an horrendous loss of quality).
(people using gnapster gtk-gnutella and these kind of software should start to
share only ogg...)
These are the conclusions we reached i thought it was important to share with you.
thank you,
marco trevisani
--
**************************************************************
* marco trevisani *
* http://trevisani.mine.nu marco@centrotemporeale.it *
* http://www.agnula.org -- A GNU/Linux Audio Distribution *
* Neither MS-Word nor MS-PowerPoint attachments please: *
* See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html *
**************************************************************
Attachment:
pgpPd1AJsOi_U.pgp
Description: PGP signature