> On Tue, Aug 28, 2001 at 10:48:14PM -0700, Joseph Carter wrote: > > So far nobody's making a big deal about the patents on the DivX encoding, > > but that could change. Debian has an unwritten and unevenly enforced > > policy of rejecting software implementing a patent or placing it into > > non-free regardless of its license. But for patents that are not very > > well-known or the holder is not being antagonistic, you can probably get > > the software into main. > > mmmkay, well, could I put mplayer (with or without CSS decryption) in > non-free? That's basically what I'm looking for. I usually boycott the > entire non-free section but when something makes it there because of > bullshit patents that I can safely ignore, that doesn't actually make > it non-free (the copyright holders aren't imposing anything that > removes your freedom).
The patent restrictions keep you from distributing it at all. If it can't go into main because of patents, it can't go into non-free (unless the patent holder has some wierd license allowing non-commercial use or such). That is one of the many reasons why patents suck for free software. Non-us is a different story, since the patent might not be valid outside of the US. However, I think Debian policy is to discourage the use of non-us for that purpose, since it was only really supposed to be for crypto stuff. Regards, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED]
