Re: gif-producing code and sarge?
On Sun, May 23, 2004 at 08:57:39PM +0200, Andreas Barth wrote:
> Hi,
>
> as far as I understood, we probably need for the release of sarge at
> least six more weeks, i.e. not before 4th July. Some packages are put
> into non-free/contrib because they produce (direct or indirect)
> gif-images, and there is a gif patent. According to
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gif.html :
> The Unisys patent expired on 20 June 2003 in the USA, but it does not
> expire in most of Europe until 18 June 2004, in Japan until 20 June
> 2004 and in Canada until 7 July 2004
What about the IBM patent mentioned there? I realize IBM are generally
somewhat less arsey about patents such as these than Unisys have been,
but it still seems like a valid concern.
> So, I would like to move these packages / programs into main (more
> specifically, ppmtogif from netpbm-nonfree into netpbm-free, and file
> wishlist requests on the appropriate dependend packages). However, as
> the last expiry falls into the deep freeze (at least I hope this ;),
> it might be useful to make the move earlier (now?). Well, this
> decision is of course yours, so please tell me if it's ok to upload
> packages that produce compressed gif into main earlier than 7th July.
I think that decision is probably ftpmaster's.
Cheers,
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]
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