Re: Bug#501190: ITP: moonlight -- open source implementation of Microsoft Silverlight
On Tue, Oct 07, 2008 at 11:05:58AM +0200, Holger Levsen wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Tuesday 07 October 2008 09:03, Robert Millan wrote:
> > Unclaimed patents are precisely the reason we don't have any MPEG encoders
> > in Debian (see http://techliberation.com/2006/05/11/mpeg-patent-thicket/).
>
> Wrong. We dont have mpeg encoders in Debian because those patents are being
> enforced.
If by "enforcement" you mean a claim specifically addressed at someone
committing infringement, then no, it isn't being enforced simply because
nobody was brave enough to commit infringement.
If by "enforcement" you mean an effect that can be archieved with open
legal threats, then yes, there's an enforcement that prevents others (e.g.
Fedora or Ubuntu) from distributing it.
Of course, since we're a a non-profit we could test our luck anyway. It
most likely won't mean anything for *us*, but it will certainly mean our
corporate users will have less confidence on the legal safety of our product.
This begs the question, what do we actually *gain* in compensation for this
risk? For example, Moonlight wasn't able to play the Chinese Olympics online
videostreams(and even more so without the non-free codecs). Is there something
Moonlight can do for our users that they weren't able to do before?
--
Robert Millan
The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."
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