Re: Patents and Multimedia codecs in Debian
On Wednesday 28 Mar 2012, Alexey Eromenko wrote:
> 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?
- Have a special repository for retrogressive countries that enforce
software patents, leaving the rest of the world unpenalised (India and
the EU, for instance, do not recognise software patents) for the follies
of a few.
Regards,
-- Raj
--
Raj Mathur || raju@kandalaya.org || GPG:
http://otheronepercent.blogspot.com || http://kandalaya.org || CC68
It is the mind that moves || http://schizoid.in || D17F
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