Neal Gompa wrote:
That is correct. The clause is considered a no-op and the license
isn't approved for use outside of this case.
I do not see how FDK-AAC minus known patented code (i.e., fdk-aac-free) is
any different there than some random CC0-covered software. In both cases,
there is a blanket disclaimer of patent grants, without any evidence that
there are actually any patents affected by the disclaimer.
Even if Fraunhofer gave you a specific list of patents, you can take their
word for it, but then by the same standard you should also trust a statement
like:
https://github.com/nemequ/hedley/issues/52#issuecomment-1035648021
I do not see why we need to give FDK-AAC a blanket pass just because a team
at Red Hat decided to work on it first and send the licence for legal review
afterwards (which is entirely the wrong order in which to do things).
(There are also other clauses of dubious freeness in that license, the
exclusion of patent grants is not even the worst IMHO.)
Kevin Kofler