On Wed, Aug 27, 2003 at 10:33:46PM -0500, Chris Cheney wrote: > I got the following email back from Michael. So with the clarification > below that it is not allowed to use the JPEG-2000 part of the code for > non-standards based work make it non DFSG free? If so is there anyway to > make it DFSG free and still uphold their wishes as stated below? > ----- Forwarded message from Michael Adams <mdadams@ece.uvic.ca> ----- > The license has been revised slightly in recent months, but I have not > released a new version of the software with this revised license. Clause F > reads as follows in the revised version of the license: > F. The JPEG-2000 codec implementation included in the JasPer software > is for use only in hardware or software products that are compliant > with ISO/IEC 15444-1 (i.e., JPEG-2000 Part 1). No license or right to > this codec implementation is granted for products that do not comply > with ISO/IEC 15444-1. > There are two reasons for the above clause: > 1) The technology used in the JPEG-2000 standard is covered by > patents. The patent holders (for which there are several) are only > allowing their patented technology to be used for implementations > that are compliant with the standard. For this reason, if anyone > uses a hacked non-JPEG-2000-compliant version of JasPer's > JPEG-2000 codec in their software, they would be breaking the law. > As an extra level of legal protection for the contributors to > JasPer, we explicitly disallow ILLEGAL patent-infringing use of the > software. [Incidentally, to the best of my knowledge, none of the > JasPer contributors hold patents on core JPEG-2000 technologies.] By using copyright law to reinforce software patents (which are a load of hooey to begin with of course), the license becomes non-free. A notice that the software is subject to patents would be free, but making it a binding part of the license is not, because the license will impact users in jurisdictions (present or future) where the patent itself is invalid, and even precludes using this code in non-compliant implementations that have properly licensed the necessary patents. > 2) We do not want hacked non-JPEG-2000-compliant versions of JasPer > being used, since this would cause major interoperability problems, > totally defeating the purpose of having an international > image-compression standard in the first place. This is a common desire, but it's irreconcilably non-free. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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