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

[Loïc Minier <lool@dooz.org>]

On Tue, Oct 07, 2008, Reinhard Tartler wrote:
>  - 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'

 What about packages which need non-free software packages to work
 (contrib) and infringe actively enforced patents?  This would mean a
 contrib-patented component.  What about patents which are enforced only
 in some countries?  What about patents only applicable in some
 countries (e.g. a patent in France)?

 Perhaps instead of trying to come with a hierarchical classification,
 we should simply expose what we know about patents and any other
 distribution issue in a machine readable way.

 What a bout a debian/distribution or debian/copyright2 file which would
 expose patents information?  e.g.:
    Country: fr
    Patent numbers: 1234, 5678
    Distribution-allowed: no
    Usage-allowed: yes
    Risk of prosecution[company, gvt, non-profit]: yes
    Risk of prosecution[user]: no
 etc.

-- 
Loïc Minier