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 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
