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Re: why mplayer not in Debian



[NB: I'm subscribed to -devel, no need to Cc: me.]

On Tue, 22 Jul 2003, A Mennucc1 wrote:
> actually: the issue of J.U. is more about packaging than legal;

This is true.

> on the issue about mpeg2dec... from
>  http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200301/msg00231.html
> I understood (incorrectly?) that it was not a big problem..
> indeed the above message ends by 
> "Obviously, if -legal feels that's superfluous, so be it."

There was a big discussion about indicating modifications and
compliance with 2c. It's not really a big deal, but just one of the
things I ran across almost a year ago. Ideally, upstream would just
indicate where they got the files from, the date when they changed it,
and who changed it.

Until that point, a simple change in the diff stating everything above
(or similar verbiage in compliance with 2c) should be enough.

> so: the only two answers (thank again) were not speaking of big
> license problems
> 
> now is the big question: do you think that our (revised) source code
> can go in mplayer (but for above changes)?

I asume you mean in Debian. I haven't seen any problems so far, but
then again, I haven't had time to seriously look at the codebase. [I
kind of stopped bothering after the whole flame war erupted, and
assumed that someone like yourself, who used mplayer and was a DD
would do the job.]

If such issues show up, I'm beginning to think that we can deal with
them with an RC bug... but that's really for ftp-master to decide.

> I would really love to know how many packages have been scrutinized
> so deeply for license problems as we did for mplayer!

Some of the major packages have, but most haven't had the long
standing legal issues that seem to have surrounded mplayer since its
inception.

Thanks for your work in trying to get this package into Debian.


Don Armstrong
[Who goes back to trying to get Adaptec to make a license statement
about dptutils.]
-- 
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are
not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is
not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers,
the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a
way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is
humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
 -- Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953

http://www.donarmstrong.com
http://www.anylevel.com
http://rzlab.ucr.edu

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