On Mon, Jul 11, 2005 at 03:54:12AM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: > > However, the reason Debian continues to include the mp3 decoder library is > that this patent, like so many other software patents, does not appear to be > actively enforced. This is the standard Debian uses in deciding whether to > distribute the software; Red Hat evidently uses a different standard.
Is that the standard Debian practise? Is that in the policy somewhere? AFAICT Debian includes many packages that violate software patents, even actively enforced ones. It's simply impossible to avoid. A very prominent example is libts/libdca, where the developers closed the project due to patent threats by DTC Inc.: http://packages.debian.org/stable/libdevel/libdts-dev http://developers.videolan.org/libdca.html Another example from the multimedia area are the patents on MPEG-2/4/H.264 held and actively enforced by the MPEG LA (licensing association) and the many packages in Debian that support MPEG-2/4/H.264 (and all of them support MP3 as well): http://www.mpegla.com http://packages.debian.org/stable/graphics/ffmpeg http://packages.debian.org/stable/graphics/vlc http://packages.debian.org/stable/libs/libxine1 http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/avifile-player DISCLAIMER: I really do not want to troll here. It's just that Debian's patent policy is unclear to the outside at best. Diego -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
