Re: mpeg encoder patents, Was: Bug#501190: ITP: moonlight
On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 16:44 +0200, Reinhard Tartler wrote:
> 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'
>
....
>
> Distributors (and archive administrators) that fear lawsuits from the
> MPEG LA could then easily stop mirroring 'patented', but still have a
> usable section 'main'.
I just wanted to say that sounds like a great idea. I really hope that
the packages of debian-multimedia are included in Debian someday.
It might also be interesting to see how Gentoo (and e.g. PCLinuxOS)
deals with packages like these. They have a lot of software in portage
that is considered patented.
My guess is that as long as you don't physically distribute patent
protected software your fine. Let people add the repo's themselves (just
like debian multimedia).
--
Regards,
Aniruddha
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