Re: No mention of "patents" in DFSG

[Giacomo Catenazzi <cate@debian.org>]

Marco d'Itri wrote:
> richard.spindler@gmail.com wrote:
> 
>> Is this intentionally left out? If yes, why?
> Patent issues were not very important when the DFSG was written.
> 
>> Is there a consensus in the debian community about how to deal with
>> "Software Patents" and the inclusion of software into the debian
>> archive? If yes, is this consensus documented somewhere?
> They are often ignored unless the ftpmasters known that they are being
> actively inforced.

Previously patented algorithms was put in non-US (with the
crypto non-exportable programs).
But I think because RTLinux is no more used, the zip and
RSA patents are expired (IIRC), there was no need to maintain
separate archive.

But I think patent was a problem also when DSFG was written.
We use gzip files because the unix "compress" was patented, and
IIRC there were other patent problems.

ciao
	cate