Re: mpeg encoder patents, Was: Bug#501190: ITP: moonlight

[Reinhard Tartler <siretart@debian.org>]

Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com> writes:

>> At the very least, we could distribute them in a specific "patented"
>> section, with rules similar to non-free, and that we’d only mirror in
>> countries where it is not a problem.
>
> While we are at it, would be nice to have a section for DMCA-impaired software
> such as libdvdcss.

How about this:

 - introduce a new section 'patented'
 - packages in 'patented' must fulfill the requirements of the dfsg
 - source packages in 'main' may produce binaries in 'patented'
 - binary packages in 'main' must not depend on packages in 'patented'
 - source packages in 'main' may build-depend on packages in 'patented'
 - source and binary packages in 'patented' may depend on package on
   both 'main' and 'patented'
 - source packages in 'patented' must not produce binaries in 'main'
 - packages in 'contrib' and 'non-free' may additionally depend on packages
   in 'patented'

This may sound complicated, but would be helpful for e.g. the xine-lib
source package:

 - all binary packages of ffmpeg would go to 'patented'
 - the source package 'xine-lib' would produce most binary package in 'main'
 - the binary package 'libxine1-ffmpeg' would go to 'patented'

Distributors (and archive administrators) that fear lawsuits from the
MPEG LA could then easily stop mirroring 'patented', but still have a
usable section 'main'.

-- 
Gruesse/greetings,
Reinhard Tartler, KeyID 945348A4