[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: weekly policy summary



***** EB => Edward Betts

EB> Gimp lacks support for GIFs and TIFFs because of pantent problems.

[...]

EB> How would you suggest he rectifies this problem without mentioning
EB> non-free software? Just tell them not to use TIFF or GIF?

Patent restriction does not imply freedom restriction: they are two
very different matters.  In other words, gimp-non-free is misnamed,
and (software license permitting) it should go directly to
non-US/main, which is main (i.e., perfectly free software).  The
package gimp could thus suggest gimp-tiff-gif without any problem.

On the other hand, if gimp-non-free was really non-free software, I
think we should not suggest it in any way from main, even if that was
the only available way to use TIFF or GIF.  This isn't the case,
however.

Cheers,

-- 
Davide G. M. Salvetti - IW5DZC [JN53fr] - <http://www.linux.it/%7Esalve/>
<http://www.gnu.org/> * <http://www.debian.org/> * <http://www.linux.org>


Reply to: