Raul Miller wrote: > On Sat, Oct 02, 1999 at 06:05:53PM +1000, Herbert Xu wrote: > > Here's a quote from the policy: > > > > `Non-free' contains packages which are not compliant with the DFSG or > > which are encumbered by patents or other legal issues that make their > > distribution problematic. > > Encumbered by patents should be non-us, not non-free. And even there, > only for cases where someone makes an issue of it.
Depends on what kind of "encumbered". Currently we put packages with problematic _distribution_ in non-us, and packages with problematic _use_ in non-free. I agree with the latter point, though. There's no clean way to deal with patents, we will have to judge real-world effects in each case. > Reason? Everything is encumbered by patents. At least in the U.S., > you're presumed to be guilty of patent infringement until proven innocent. To support this: As an excercise, try writing any program that you can *prove* does not infringe on any patents. > I propose that the above language be changed to: > > `Non-free' contains packages which are not compliant with the DFSG. This will put all GIF-creating packages in main. Is that what we want? Richard Braakman
