Re: MPlayer

[Alexander Wirt <formorer@formorer.de>]

Carlos Laviola wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 03:59:34 +0200, Michelle Konzack
> <linux4michelle@freenet.de> wrote:
>
> > Forgotten somthing...
> >
> > Am 2004-07-19 19:45:02, schrieb Greg Folkert:
> >
> >
> > > If you have Windows installed on your machine, you are just using
> > > already installed files on your system, though in fact by Windows...
> > > doesn't matter.
> >
> > There is a tool "cabextract" or somthing like this...
> >
> > And if "mplayer" comes only with free codecs, there can be a
> > function or script which can extract the right codecs directly
> > from the original Windows CD's.
> >
> > So it is not impossibel to get "mplayer" in Debian...
> > But Upstream dont like this idea I think...
>
>
> As mentioned before in the thread, mplayer can't be included in Debian
> because large portions of code it relies upon, even if they're
> released under a free license(http://ffmpeg.sf.net) are based on, or
> similar to, patented algorithms, which makes it a problem for us. It's
> the same thing that keeps LAME out of Debian, as far as I know.
Then please remove all mp3players [1] and Xine [2] too, as they also use 
patented algorithms.

debian-legal overlooked the mplayer source

Its stupid to take mplayer out of debian where other software with the 
same problem is outside. I don't ask to remove them, but to be 
consistent. The mplayer team spent much work on getting mplayer DFSG 
Free, somebody should honor this work.

Alex

[1] http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html
[2]
formorer@lisa:~$ apt-get source libxine1
...
formorer@lisa:~/xine-lib-1-rc5$ grep -r ffmpeg * | wc -l
650
any questions ?
[3] See the mplayer reloaded thread
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/debian-legal-200403/msg00235.html


--
Alexander "formorer" Wirt	KeyID: BC7D020A 	
EMail: formorer@formorer.de	ICQ: 28651245