Patents and Multimedia codecs in Debian
Hi,
I have just read the discussion about patents and the "Debian Position
on Software Patents" [1]
The Debian project includes a number of patent-encumbered Multimedia
codecs (Audio+Video, at least decoders), namely MP3 and MPEG4.
Potential packages, that need review:
gstreamer[version]-plugins-ugly
libxine1-ffmpeg
libavcodec[version]
libavformat[version]
vlc
chromium-browser
libk3b6-extracodecs
mencoder
...anything else, that I missed.
How-to reproduce:
1. Install fresh Debian system, with several Multimedia Players, such
as "GNOME Totem", "KDE Kaffeine", "VLC".
2. Play MPEG4 and MP3 in Kaffeine
3. Play MPEG4 and MP3 in VLC
4. Compare this to Red Hat or SUSE
What happens ?
Debian 6.0 "squeeze" will play both MPEG4 and MP3 files
out-of-the-box, by default. (using *only* main repository packages)
Red Hat (both RHEL and Fedora) and SUSE will *not* play those files,
until the user manually installs the codecs from unofficial
repository.
Red Hat and SUSE will only play OGG Vorbis, Theora and WebM codecs
out-of-the-box.
I don't know what to do in this situation, few possibilities:
-"do nothing"
-move patent-encumbered codecs into "non-free" repo ? Or external repo?
[1] http://www.debian.org/legal/patent
--
-Alexey Eromenko "Technologov"
Debian User.
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