Re: Bug#666010: ITP: nvidia-texture-tools -- image processing and texture manipulation tools
On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 6:46 PM, Lennart Weller <lhw@ring0.de> wrote:
> Am 28.03.2012 01:01, schrieb Ben Hutchings:
>>
>> Since you've accepted as fact that this software infringes those
>> patents, it looks like you're about to violate item 1 of the Debian
>> patent policy.
>>
>> Ben.
>>
> S3TC is not actively enforced by S3. And I took this thread [1] as a
> reference to create the ITP anyway. According to this thread from 2010
> there are at least three other projects already using the S3TC
> algorithms. And there is more than one project which depends on this
> package. e.g. 0ad and wine
>
> [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2010/12/msg00062.html
I think Ben's point is that the Debian Patent Policy[1] was published
on February 19, 2012, and therefore would supersede any previous
consensus regarding the inclusion of patent encumbered software where
the included patents are not being actively enforced.
Personally, I agree with the posters in the thread you cited[2]. If
this is going to be the project's official position, it may as well
close shop.
[1] http://www.debian.org/legal/patent
[2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2010/12/msg00062.html
P.S. My apologies to those who may be seeing this on debian-user as
well. I accidentally posted my reply there by mistake. I am posting
it here, as well, for the benefit of those who are not on debian-user.
--
Chris
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