Bug#295914: tvtime: seems to include undistributable code
Package: tvtime
Version: 0.9.15-1
Severity: serious
Justification: Policy 2.3
The package copyright file states, in part:
src/speedy.*
[...]
**
* Includes 420to422, 422to444 scaling filters from the MPEG2 reference
* implementation. The v12 source code indicates that they were written
* by Cheung Auyeung <auyeung@mot.com>. The file they were in was:
*
* store.c, picture output routines
* Copyright (C) 1996, MPEG Software Simulation Group. All Rights Reserved.
*
* Disclaimer of Warranty
*
* These software programs are available to the user without any license fee or
* royalty on an "as is" basis. The MPEG Software Simulation Group disclaims
* any and all warranties, whether express, implied, or statuary, including any
* implied warranties or merchantability or of fitness for a particular
* purpose. In no event shall the copyright-holder be liable for any
* incidental, punitive, or consequential damages of any kind whatsoever
* arising from the use of these programs.
*
* This disclaimer of warranty extends to the user of these programs and user's
* customers, employees, agents, transferees, successors, and assigns.
*
* The MPEG Software Simulation Group does not represent or warrant that the
* programs furnished hereunder are free of infringement of any third-party
* patents.
*
* Commercial implementations of MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video, including shareware,
* are subject to royalty fees to patent holders. Many of these patents are
* general enough such that they are unavoidable regardless of implementation
* design.
*
*/
This is a copyright notice with a disclaimer of warranty, but no license at
all! All rights reserved.
Where's the permission to distribute?
This seems to be not only non-free, but even undistributable! :-(
MPEG Software Simulation Group should be contacted and asked for a DFSG-free
license to this code.
Otherwise, the code should be replaced with a DFSG-free implementation of
the same (or similar) algorithms.
As an aside, note that the copyright file seems to include large duplicated
parts: at around half length, it starts over again with
"This package was debianized by ..."
and goes on restating lots of already quoted copyright notices (though the
two halves are not identical...).
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