Royalty free gstreamer plug-in

[Gianluca Sforna]

Hi all,
is this announce from Fluendo referenced here:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=13078
already being discussed at Fedora Legal?

It would be really nice to finally have mp3 support OUTB in Fedora.

Cheers and Happy Christmas

Gianluca

[Nicu Buculei]

Gianluca Sforna wrote:
>  Hi all,
>  is this announce from Fluendo referenced here:
>  http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=13078
>  already being discussed at Fedora Legal?
>  
>  It would be really nice to finally have mp3 support OUTB in Fedora. 
If my understanding is correct, this does NOT means mp3 support "out of 
the box" in Fedora.

It appears Fluendo got redistribution rights for binaries, not for 
source code - the relevant passage is "If you are living in a country 
where the mp3 patents don't apply you can of course use the source code".

So, again, if I understood correctly, Fedora will not include this 
plugin (because the distribution of sources is still covered by patents) 
but will be free to link to a page hosting the binaries. That or Fedora 
will go to the darkside and include binaries and no sources.

-- 
nicu
my hats collection: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/hats/
Open Clip Art Library: http://www.openclipart.org
my Fedora stuff: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro

[Thomas Vander Stichele]

Hi,

>  It appears Fluendo got redistribution rights for binaries, not for 
>  source code - the relevant passage is "If you are living in a country 
>  where the mp3 patents don't apply you can of course use the source code".
Anyone is free to distribute this source code.  There is nothing illegal
about offering source code available for download, even if it implements
concepts covered by patents.  In fact, you can easily download official
reference code for a wide range of codecs from the respective group's
sites.

Red Hat can sign a redistribution contract with Fluendo that allows them
to also rebuild this source code into binaries to which Fluendo's patent
license applies.

So Fedora can include the .src.rpm for this plug-in (it's MIT, just like
any other piece of MIT code), and they can include the binary .rpm built
from it (if they sign this contract).

The only question that matters, if I understand correctly, from Red
Hat's point of view is: does it matter that if one of our users rebuilds
this .src.rpm, he ends up with a binary .rpm that, while exactly the
same as the one built by Red Hat, does not automatically come with a
patent license - because it is not transferable from Red Hat to said
user ?

This is a fairly unique situation, and I'm sure it will need to be
examined in more detail by lawyers and others.  But I wouldn't be so
quick to dismiss it as impossible to ship :)

Also keep the following in mind; the MIT license was specifically chosen
because it contains no specific language about patents, like the GPL
does.  You will find that all other mp3 decoding projects have chosen
the GPL.  Some of them did so because they know the GPL presents
problems when it comes to patents, thus providing incentive to people
who want to use their software to pay for an alternate license.  This is
one of the ways one can make money off of writing GPL software :)

Thomas

Dave/Dina : future TV today ! - http://www.davedina.org/
<-*- thomas (dot) apestaart (dot) org -*->
nobody's interested
in something you didn't do
<-*- thomas (at) apestaart (dot) org -*->
URGent, best radio on the net - 24/7 ! - http://urgent.fm/

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

> Red Hat can sign a redistribution contract with Fluendo that allows them
> to also rebuild this source code into binaries to which Fluendo's patent
> license applies.
>
>   
>  
Yes. The requirement to sign up agreements with Fluendo is important 
here. We can choose to do that for RHEL but its a believe its a 
compromise to make one of the primary design principles of Fedora.

> Also keep the following in mind; the MIT license was specifically
> chosen
> because it contains no specific language about patents, like the GPL
> does.  You will find that all other mp3 decoding projects have chosen
> the GPL.  Some of them did so because they know the GPL presents
> problems when it comes to patents, thus providing incentive to people
> who want to use their software to pay for an alternate license.  This is
> one of the ways one can make money off of writing GPL software :)
>   
>  
Yes. it is. Congrats on figuring out a Free software business model.  
The situation seems to be a bit more trickier than my understanding of 
it. I guess we need to call up the lawyers again to understand this more 
clearly.

-- 
Rahul 

Learn. Network. Experience open source.
Red Hat Summit Nashville  |  May 30 - June 2, 2006
Learn more: http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/

[Jef Spaleta]

On 12/23/05, Thomas Vander Stichele <thomas(a)apestaart.org&gt; wrote:
>  So Fedora can include the .src.rpm for this plug-in (it's MIT,
> just like
>  any other piece of MIT code), and they can include the binary .rpm built
>  from it (if they sign this contract).
>
>  The only question that matters, if I understand correctly, from Red
>  Hat's point of view is: does it matter that if one of our users rebuilds
>  this .src.rpm, he ends up with a binary .rpm that, while exactly the
>  same as the one built by Red Hat, does not automatically come with a
>  patent license - because it is not transferable from Red Hat to said
>  user ?
>
>  This is a fairly unique situation, and I'm sure it will need to be
>  examined in more detail by lawyers and others.  But I wouldn't be so
>  quick to dismiss it as impossible to ship :)
>
>  Also keep the following in mind; the MIT license was specifically chosen
>  because it contains no specific language about patents, like the GPL
>  does.  You will find that all other mp3 decoding projects have chosen
>  the GPL.  Some of them did so because they know the GPL presents
>  problems when it comes to patents, thus providing incentive to people
>  who want to use their software to pay for an alternate license.  This is
>  one of the ways one can make money off of writing GPL software :) 

The use of the MIT license is definitely a new and interesting twist
in the debate. Sadly its going to have to be vetted by legal and we
know what that means.... we'll know in 6 to 8 months if its legally
okay to put this code into the fedora tree.  I think the MIT license
for this codebase definitely impacts the legal issues.

But beyond legality and into policy...I'm not sure the issue of
transferability of the patent license is a policy blocker. Doesn't
fedora already ship items with trademark constraints that hamper
verbatim rebuilds by downstream users? Mozilla's trademark policy
specifically comes to mind.  Yes.. trademarks is not the same as
patents. And yes software patents are inherently evil and trademarks
are inherently good.  I'm just saying that we already have software in
the tree that rebuilding and redistribution of is somewhat constrained
beyond copyright allowances. We aren't adding additional headache for
rebuilders that they don't already have to be aware of by including
this MIT licensed source under signed contract.

I think the policy question is bound up into the politics of how
strongly fedora wants to draw a line in the sand about the licensing
terms for software patents.  Users who need and desire mp3 support are
going to find a way to get mp3 support, there is no question about
that. If Fedora tows a very strict policy of "hear no evil, see no
evil" its not going to stop a single person from getting the software
they need from a 3rd party source.  What's the better way to serve and
educate users? Drawing a very strict line and forcing people to google
and find solutions on their own? Pointing out a specific 3rd party
vendor to legally obtain the software while still holding a strict
policy about excluding non-transferable patent licenses? Or providing
as much technology that is legally allowed in the tree and letting
downstream rebuilders deal with the additional patent license issues.

-jef

[Patrick W. Barnes]

Thomas Vander Stichele wrote:
>  Anyone is free to distribute this source code.  There is nothing illegal
>  about offering source code available for download, even if it implements
>  concepts covered by patents.  In fact, you can easily download official
>  reference code for a wide range of codecs from the respective group's
>  sites.
>     
That is not accurate.  Use of the MIT license doesn't change the patent
situation.  If patents were so easily defeated, it would have happened
long ago.  None of the licenses that Fluendo has will cover
redistribution by others.  It still remains problematic in the United
States for us to redistribute this package.
>  Red Hat can sign a redistribution contract with Fluendo that allows
> them
>  to also rebuild this source code into binaries to which Fluendo's patent
>  license applies.
>     
That might work for RHEL, but it is meaningless for Fedora, and
basically a non-starter for any non-commercial redistribution who's
looking for the legal way out.  Even if it were included in RHEL, it
would be much like the Java components that cannot be redistributed with
the rest of the open source components.
>  So Fedora can include the .src.rpm for this plug-in (it's MIT,
> just like
>  any other piece of MIT code), and they can include the binary .rpm built
>  from it (if they sign this contract).
>     
One of Fedora's policies is to enable downstream rebuilds and
redistribution.  Contracts are a no-go, and it is still no more legal
for us to redistribute the source code.  If the patent holders decide to
go after people, they'd still be able to get us for that.
>  This is a fairly unique situation, and I'm sure it will need to be
>  examined in more detail by lawyers and others.  But I wouldn't be so
>  quick to dismiss it as impossible to ship :)
>     
It does need to be examined by lawyers to establish its exact legal
position, but it cannot be included in Fedora either way.
>  Also keep the following in mind; the MIT license was specifically
> chosen
>  because it contains no specific language about patents, like the GPL
>  does.
>     
Lacking language about patents doesn't take away the liability.  Quite
the opposite, in fact.  Using the MIT license is telling everyone else
"Hey, if you get sued for using this, remember - our license didn't say
anything about patents, and it didn't offer you any protections."

-- 
Patrick "The N-Man" Barnes
nman64(a)n-man.com

http://www.n-man.com/
-- 
Have I been helpful?  Rate my assistance!  http://rate.affero.net/nman64/

[Thomas Vander Stichele]

>  That is not accurate.  Use of the MIT license doesn't change the
> patent
>  situation. 
Could you expand on that point a bit ? Calling something "the patent
situation" doesn't tell me exactly what you mean.

FWIW, for most distributions the problem with mp3 code is precisely that
all these decoders were GPL-licensed, and the GPL has a clause that
terminates your right to distribute if you cannot distribute freely to
all (remember, IANAL).  So the problem was in the GPL, not in the code
or in the fact that patents apply.

Feel free to correct me if I'm missing something.

>    If patents were so easily defeated, it would have happened
>  long ago. 
This does not defeat patents.  This only aims at achieving a very
specific thing: allowing distros to ship both source code for a decoder,
without violating the source code license, and binaries built from it,
with the necessary patent license attached.

One of the reasons this never happened before is because nobody wanted
to invest in creating a MIT codebase to do so (remember - this means any
other company can "rip Fluendo off" and repackage their code) - all free
software decoders that I know of are under the GPL.

>    None of the licenses that Fluendo has will cover
>  redistribution by others. 
Are you sure ? Fluendo offers any distributor the possibility of signing
a contract that allows distributors to rebuild binaries for which the
patent license Fluendo negotiated is transferable.

>  That might work for RHEL, but it is meaningless for Fedora, and
>  basically a non-starter for any non-commercial redistribution who's
>  looking for the legal way out.  Even if it were included in RHEL, it
>  would be much like the Java components that cannot be redistributed with
>  the rest of the open source components. 
  
>  Lacking language about patents doesn't take away the liability. 
> Quite
>  the opposite, in fact.  Using the MIT license is telling everyone else
>  "Hey, if you get sued for using this, remember - our license didn't say
>  anything about patents, and it didn't offer you any protections." 
The point is that "use" of a piece of software applies to the binary,
not the source code.  You cannot get sued for having a piece of software
code.  You can get sued for distributing a working (in this case,
binary) version of the code without the permission to do so, or for
using a binary version for which you do not have a permission.  Of
course, IANAL, but if I'm wrong about this, please argue the specific
points I'm wrong about.

In this respect, any piece of code currently shipped by Fedora could be
the subject of a lawsuit for any of the customers.  Fedora is not
guaranteeing their users they won't get sued for anything in the distro,
so I don't see why it would be different for this particular package.

Thanks for your insightful comments, I hope to form a clearer picture
for myself on the situation.

Thomas


Dave/Dina : future TV today ! - http://www.davedina.org/
<-*- thomas (dot) apestaart (dot) org -*->
Is there a voice unkind
in the back of your mind
saying "maybe you didn't know him at all"
<-*- thomas (at) apestaart (dot) org -*->
URGent, best radio on the net - 24/7 ! - http://urgent.fm/

[Patrick W. Barnes]

Thomas Vander Stichele wrote:
>  > That is not accurate.  Use of the MIT license doesn't change
> the patent
>  > situation.
>
>  Could you expand on that point a bit ? Calling something "the patent
>  situation" doesn't tell me exactly what you mean.
>
>     
By "the patent situation", I mean that MP3 is covered by patents, and
that to use or redistribute any technology that takes advantage of a
patented technique, you must obtain a license from the patent holder.
>  FWIW, for most distributions the problem with mp3 code is precisely
> that
>  all these decoders were GPL-licensed, and the GPL has a clause that
>  terminates your right to distribute if you cannot distribute freely to
>  all (remember, IANAL).  So the problem was in the GPL, not in the code
>  or in the fact that patents apply.
>
>  Feel free to correct me if I'm missing something.
>     
That is only part of it.  The other part is that we are in the United
States, where use of patented techniques without a license is illegal. 
Your licensing means we can redistribute from a copyright perspective,
but we are still constrained by the patent.  Under the GPL, we lose the
copyright if the codebase is impacted by a patent.  With the MIT
license, we still have a copyright license even though the technology is
covered by a patent, but it is still illegal for us to use and
redistribute the technology without a patent license.
>  >   If patents were so easily defeated, it would have happened
>  > long ago.
>
>  This does not defeat patents.  This only aims at achieving a very
>  specific thing: allowing distros to ship both source code for a decoder,
>  without violating the source code license, and binaries built from it,
>  with the necessary patent license attached.
>     
The point is that a contract is still needed for the binaries.  We could
have gotten a patent license before, but we will not be given a patent
license that automatically covers us and all downstream users and
distributors.  Thanks to you, we have something we can distribute from a
copyright perspective, but not a patent perspective.
>  One of the reasons this never happened before is because nobody
> wanted
>  to invest in creating a MIT codebase to do so (remember - this means any
>  other company can "rip Fluendo off" and repackage their code) - all free
>  software decoders that I know of are under the GPL.
>     
This is something unique, and parts of the community can thank you for
it.  Unfortunately, it doesn't help Fedora or others who still have to
worry about the patent constraints.
>  >   None of the licenses that Fluendo has will cover
>  > redistribution by others.
>
>  Are you sure ? Fluendo offers any distributor the possibility of signing
>  a contract that allows distributors to rebuild binaries for which the
>  patent license Fluendo negotiated is transferable.
>     
That contract is a killer.  Also, it wouldn't make much sense for us to
include a plugin that can only be used with other non-GPL software. 
Most of the software in Fedora that uses the gstreamer backend is GPL
software.  This solution is GPL-incompatible, and that causes a lot of
problems that are hard to overlook.
>  > That might work for RHEL, but it is meaningless for Fedora, and
>  > basically a non-starter for any non-commercial redistribution who's
>  > looking for the legal way out.  Even if it were included in RHEL, it
>  > would be much like the Java components that cannot be redistributed with
>  > the rest of the open source components.
>    
>  > Lacking language about patents doesn't take away the liability.  Quite
>  > the opposite, in fact.  Using the MIT license is telling everyone else
>  > "Hey, if you get sued for using this, remember - our license didn't say
>  > anything about patents, and it didn't offer you any protections."
>
>  The point is that "use" of a piece of software applies to the binary,
>  not the source code.  You cannot get sued for having a piece of software
>  code.  You can get sued for distributing a working (in this case,
>  binary) version of the code without the permission to do so, or for
>  using a binary version for which you do not have a permission.  Of
>  course, IANAL, but if I'm wrong about this, please argue the specific
>  points I'm wrong about.
>
>  In this respect, any piece of code currently shipped by Fedora could be
>  the subject of a lawsuit for any of the customers.  Fedora is not
>  guaranteeing their users they won't get sued for anything in the distro,
>  so I don't see why it would be different for this particular package.
>     
Fedora isn't making any guarantees, but we are trying hard to protect
our users and downstream distributors.  NTFS is a similar situation. 
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ForbiddenItems isn't just for us, it is
for us, our users, and downstream distributors and builders.
>  Thanks for your insightful comments, I hope to form a clearer
> picture
>  for myself on the situation.
>
>  Thomas
>
>
>  Dave/Dina : future TV today ! - http://www.davedina.org/
>  <-*- thomas (dot) apestaart (dot) org -*->
>  Is there a voice unkind
>  in the back of your mind
>  saying "maybe you didn't know him at all"
>  <-*- thomas (at) apestaart (dot) org -*->
>  URGent, best radio on the net - 24/7 ! - http://urgent.fm/
>
>
>
>     
What you're doing and what you're trying to do is great, but there is a
distinct reason that MP3 has been such a problem in the past.  You've
made some progress, but we are still a long way away from being where we
need to be in order to have free MP3.  The patent holder doesn't want
their technology in the wild, and until they are ready to release their
hold, that situation won't change.  Many thanks, congratulations, and
good work, but there's still a lot that has to happen before Fedora can
have MP3 support.

-- 
Patrick "The N-Man" Barnes
nman64(a)n-man.com

http://www.n-man.com/
-- 
Have I been helpful?  Rate my assistance!  http://rate.affero.net/nman64/

[Jef Spaleta]

On 12/23/05, Patrick Barnes <nman64(a)n-man.com&gt; wrote:
>  By "the patent situation", I mean that MP3 is covered by
> patents, and
>  that to use or redistribute any technology that takes advantage of a
>  patented technique, you must obtain a license from the patent holder. 
Assuming this statement about requiring generally requiring a contract
for patent encombered sourcecode is true and the statement that Fedora
doesn't contract for patents is also true.. can you explain why the
freetype package that ships in Core includes the source code for the
patented byte interpreter?   You know the bytecode intepreter that can
be re-enabled with a simple rebuild of freetype src.rpm by switching a
predefined specfile macro  %define without_bytecode_interpreter from 0
to 1?

I honestly can't reconcile either claim you make about the general
situation in a way the explains why freetype is shipped in fedora the
way that it is.

-jef

[Patrick W. Barnes]

Jeff Spaleta wrote:
>  On 12/23/05, Patrick Barnes <nman64(a)n-man.com&gt; wrote:
>  > By "the patent situation", I mean that MP3 is covered by patents, and
>  > that to use or redistribute any technology that takes advantage of a
>  > patented technique, you must obtain a license from the patent holder.
>
>  Assuming this statement about requiring generally requiring a contract
>  for patent encombered sourcecode is true and the statement that Fedora
>  doesn't contract for patents is also true.. can you explain why the
>  freetype package that ships in Core includes the source code for the
>  patented byte interpreter?   You know the bytecode intepreter that can
>  be re-enabled with a simple rebuild of freetype src.rpm by switching a
>  predefined specfile macro  %define without_bytecode_interpreter from 0
>  to 1?
>
>  I honestly can't reconcile either claim you make about the general
>  situation in a way the explains why freetype is shipped in fedora the
>  way that it is.
>
>  -jef
>
>     
The issue is that we don't just distribute the software in source form,
and we want users and downstream to be able to build and use the
software, too.  We would also need a patent license that covers all
users and downstream before we could include this in the distribution. 
We can't get a contract that does that for us.

-- 
Patrick "The N-Man" Barnes
nman64(a)n-man.com

http://www.n-man.com/
-- 
Have I been helpful?  Rate my assistance!  http://rate.affero.net/nman64/

[Jef Spaleta]

On 12/23/05, Patrick Barnes <nman64(a)n-man.com&gt; wrote:
>  The issue is that we don't just distribute the software in source
> form,
>  and we want users and downstream to be able to build and use the
>  software, too. 
You ducked the question i asked about reconcilation of your
statements
nicely. Yes we would like very much if software patents disappeared
off the face of the planet completely.
Let's all hold our breath waiting for that to happen.

> We would also need a patent license that covers all
>  users and downstream before we could include this in the distribution.
>  We can't get a contract that does that for us. 
Need and want... are two very different words.  I really don't know
how important it is that the full tree be rebuildable without
additional constraint placed on the downstream rebuilder. I think
trademark policy as it stands makes that a very poorly defined goal. 
So what if a rebuilder has to exclude this mp3 codec plugin when
rebuilding. He has to to exclude the fedora-logos package as well. 
Excluding this one package as a rebuilder is nothing compared to the
pain of replacing the trademarked logos inside packages.

-jef

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Jeff Spaleta wrote:

>  Need and want... are two very different words.  I really don't
> know
>  how important it is that the full tree be rebuildable without
>  additional constraint placed on the downstream rebuilder. I think
>  trademark policy as it stands makes that a very poorly defined goal. 
>  So what if a rebuilder has to exclude this mp3 codec plugin when
>  rebuilding. He has to to exclude the fedora-logos package as well. 
>  Excluding this one package as a rebuilder is nothing compared to the
>  pain of replacing the trademarked logos inside packages. 
But you can do it (CentOS does)
That's the whole point. To be allowed to take Fedora Core and do 
something else with it, if you disagree with Red Hat policies.

This proposal OTOH is pretty much your take it or leave it traditional 
closed software offer.

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot

[Thomas Vander Stichele]

Hi,

>  But you can do it (CentOS does)
>  That's the whole point. To be allowed to take Fedora Core and do 
>  something else with it, if you disagree with Red Hat policies.
>  
>  This proposal OTOH is pretty much your take it or leave it traditional 
>  closed software offer. 
Not really.  CentOS can still rebuild the whole distro, without the mp3
plugin, or choose to enter into a distributor's agreement with Fluendo,
and ship with the mp3 plugin.

Also, when was the last time that in a traditional closed software offer
you could see the source, make changes to it, submit the changes, and
get legal use out of your changes by using the next version of the
binary that gets released ?

You're trying to paint it a lot more black and white than it is, I
think.

Thomas


Dave/Dina : future TV today ! - http://www.davedina.org/
<-*- thomas (dot) apestaart (dot) org -*->
Bye bye long day
need to sleep so much
ninety hours straight
<-*- thomas (at) apestaart (dot) org -*->
URGent, best radio on the net - 24/7 ! - http://urgent.fm/

[Nicolas Mailhot]

On Ven 23 décembre 2005 19:13, Thomas Vander Stichele wrote:

>  Also, when was the last time that in a traditional closed software
> offer
>  you could see the source, make changes to it, submit the changes, and
>  get legal use out of your changes by using the next version of the
>  binary that gets released ?
>
>  You're trying to paint it a lot more black and white than it is, I
>  think. 
This is a lot less exceptional than you think. Microsoft shared source
program is pretty much the same thing.

Here only upstream is allowed to release legit binaries, so you don't get
the vendor freedom real FOSS permits.

The point of pure FOSS distros like FC is they're not benevolent
dictatorships. You don't like them you can leave them taking with you 100%
of the code and associated rebuild rights.

As you admitted yourself a Centos-like effort would have to drop the mp3
plugin. So it's definitely not free (I'll grant you the open part)

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot

[Thomas Vander Stichele]

Hi,

>  On Ven 23 décembre 2005 19:13, Thomas Vander Stichele wrote:
>  
>  > Also, when was the last time that in a traditional closed software offer
>  > you could see the source, make changes to it, submit the changes, and
>  > get legal use out of your changes by using the next version of the
>  > binary that gets released ?
>  >
>  > You're trying to paint it a lot more black and white than it is, I
>  > think.
>  
>  This is a lot less exceptional than you think. Microsoft shared source
>  program is pretty much the same thing. 
Heh, you're showing your innate negativity too easily by comparing it to
this.  I'm pretty sure I can't look at Microsoft code for Windows *right
now*, and even if I could, I'm pretty sure I can't expect a fix I send
to be available any time soon.

>  Here only upstream is allowed to release legit binaries, so you
> don't get
>  the vendor freedom real FOSS permits. 
You conveniently omitted the fact that I've mentioned before -
*everyone* downstream is free to sign this distribution contract with
us.

>  The point of pure FOSS distros like FC is they're not benevolent
>  dictatorships. You don't like them you can leave them taking with you 100%
>  of the code and associated rebuild rights.
>  
>  As you admitted yourself a Centos-like effort would have to drop the mp3
>  plugin. 
Again, you conveniently dropped half of what I said.  I also said Centos
could easily sign this contract with us and redistribute the mp3 plugin.
I am getting the feeling you are dropping facts on purpose.  I expected
better.

>   So it's definitely not free (I'll grant you the open part)
We never claimed it was "Free Software".  Of course it's not 100% Free
Software in the sense that GNU would want it.  The reason is pretty
simple - within the constraints of the patent issue it is not possible
to deliver a completely Free Software solution.

Thomas

Dave/Dina : future TV today ! - http://www.davedina.org/
<-*- thomas (dot) apestaart (dot) org -*->
- Nice wheels.
- Came with the car.
<-*- thomas (at) apestaart (dot) org -*->
URGent, best radio on the net - 24/7 ! - http://urgent.fm/

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Thomas Vander Stichele a écrit :

> >The point of pure FOSS distros like FC is they're not
> benevolent
> >dictatorships. You don't like them you can leave them taking with you 100%
> >of the code and associated rebuild rights.
> >
> >As you admitted yourself a Centos-like effort would have to drop the mp3
> >plugin.
>  
>  
>  Again, you conveniently dropped half of what I said.  I also said Centos
>  could easily sign this contract with us and redistribute the mp3 plugin.
>  I am getting the feeling you are dropping facts on purpose.  I expected
>  better. 

What I'm pointing is you have a central choke point and rebuild rights
are not retransmitted as-is to downstream users, you can't even
workaround them (like for firefox) by dropping a few trademarks.

And I don't doubt you intend to be nice with your agreement, but hte
fact there *is* an agreement in any form is a show stopper


-- 
Nicolas Mailhot

[Jef Spaleta]

On 12/23/05, Thomas Vander Stichele <thomas(a)apestaart.org&gt; wrote:
>  Also, when was the last time that in a traditional closed software
> offer
>  you could see the source, make changes to it, submit the changes, and
>  get legal use out of your changes by using the next version of the
>  binary that gets released ? 
As i've mentioned elsewhere... the inability to patch as needed
downstream without upstream authorization is probably a deal breaker
without invoking the rights of downstream rebuilders who want to use
Fedora sources.  A Fedora maintainer would need to have the
flexibility  and authority to patch for security/compatibility on a
timescale faster than upstream might be able to respond.  A
requirement for any patches to be submitted back to upstream isn't
unreasonable to me. But having to wait for upstream to formally bless
them and re-incorporate them is going to be a maintenance burden. 
This I believe is one of  problems which keeps pine out of Fedora.

-jef

[Jeff Pitman]

On 12/24/05, Nicolas Mailhot <nicolas.mailhot(a)laposte.net&gt; wrote:
>  This proposal OTOH is pretty much your take it or leave it
> traditional
>  closed software offer. 
I disagree. If it were a traditional closed-source software offer,
then the thread would have terminated long ago. What we have here is
an offer that allows Fedora to, at the very least, explicitly point
users to a friendly way to get MP3 support. Do we monitor the
fedora-user list and other fedora forums to ensure that no mention of
livna and freshrpms are made? These might constitute as patent
violations because the comments are hosted by Redhat and are vehicles
for which users can circumvent the patent-less distro.

(Optimally, FC should just take up the offer and include it in the
distro. Wasn't Redhat offering indemnication against ghost-cases of
patent claims during the SCO debacle? How about MP3? :D)

--
-jeff

[Tom Lane]

Jeff Pitman <jeff.pitman(a)gmail.com&gt; writes:
>  (Optimally, FC should just take up the offer and include it in the
>  distro. Wasn't Redhat offering indemnication against ghost-cases of
>  patent claims during the SCO debacle? How about MP3? :D) 
IANAL, I don't speak for Red Hat, etc ... but a couple of points seem
worth making here:

1.  SCO's claims are utterly without merit.  (IMHO, yadda yadda, see
above.)  The MP3 patents are real.

2.  SCO's claims cover the basis of the Unix/Linux system, while the
ability to play MP3's is, um, inessential to getting other things done.

The risk/reward ratio for Red Hat to consider indemnifying users against
the two issues is completely different.  I don't think you'll see Red
Hat going out on a limb for MP3 players.

			regards, tom lane

[Arjan van de Ven]

On Tue, 2005-12-27 at 01:20 -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
>  Jeff Pitman <jeff.pitman(a)gmail.com&gt; writes:
>  > (Optimally, FC should just take up the offer and include it in the
>  > distro. Wasn't Redhat offering indemnication against ghost-cases of
>  > patent claims during the SCO debacle? How about MP3? :D)
>  
>  IANAL, I don't speak for Red Hat, etc ... but a couple of points seem
>  worth making here:
>  
>  1.  SCO's claims are utterly without merit.  (IMHO, yadda yadda, see
>  above.)  The MP3 patents are real.
>  
>  2.  SCO's claims cover the basis of the Unix/Linux system, while the
>  ability to play MP3's is, um, inessential to getting other things done.
>  
>  The risk/reward ratio for Red Hat to consider indemnifying users against
>  the two issues is completely different.  I don't think you'll see Red
>  Hat going out on a limb for MP3 players. 
I also think that the indemnification only applies to paying customers
(eg RHEL) and not fedora...

[Jeff Pitman]

On 12/27/05, Tom Lane <tgl(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  The risk/reward ratio for Red Hat to consider indemnifying users
> against
>  the two issues is completely different.  I don't think you'll see Red
>  Hat going out on a limb for MP3 players. 
IOW, indemnification offers are just hot air. But, we know this isn't
indemnification for MP3s, it's a different beast. The comment was to
highlight where Redhat's priorities are. For good or bad.

Let's not forget that the "holier-than-thou" stance alienates quite a few
users.

--
-jeff

[Rahul Sundaram]

Jeff Pitman wrote:

> On 12/27/05, Tom Lane <tgl(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>   
>
> >The risk/reward ratio for Red Hat to consider indemnifying users against
> >the two issues is completely different.  I don't think you'll see Red
> >Hat going out on a limb for MP3 players.
> >    
> >
>
> IOW, indemnification offers are just hot air. But, we know this isn't
> indemnification for MP3s, it's a different beast. The comment was to
> highlight where Redhat's priorities are. For good or bad.
>
> Let's not forget that the "holier-than-thou" stance alienates quite a few
> users.
>
>   
>  
Can you explain that comment a bit more?. Do you mean the stance on 
providing only open source software without restrictions?


-- 
Rahul 

Learn. Network. Experience open source.
Red Hat Summit Nashville  |  May 30 - June 2, 2006
Learn more: http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/

[Jeff Pitman]

On 12/27/05, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  Jeff Pitman wrote:
>  >Let's not forget that the "holier-than-thou" stance alienates quite a
> few users.
>  >
>  Can you explain that comment a bit more?. 
Sure, no problem.

>  Do you mean the stance on providing only open source software without
> restrictions? 
Yes. And that's not to say that I disagree with the stance. In fact, I
agree with it given that "restrictions" are well-defined. Being
belligerent about looking into potential workarounds is not a show of
good faith. And, when you do not show good faith, you lose people.
Maybe you don't care; that's fine. But, it's good to be reminded that
the stances we take can and will alienate a bunch of people. It's the
truth whether you "much rather change the world instead of going along
with it" or not.
--
-jeff

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

>   
>
> >Do you mean the stance on providing only open source software without restrictions?
> >    
> >
>
> Yes. And that's not to say that I disagree with the stance. In fact, I
> agree with it given that "restrictions" are well-defined. 
>  
Right. The restrictions are pretty well defined at this point. The 
project goals are well advertised and active on the lists I believe 
knows about it.

> Being
> belligerent about looking into potential workarounds is not a show of
> good faith. And, when you do not show good faith, you lose people.
> Maybe you don't care; that's fine. But, it's good to be reminded that
> the stances we take can and will alienate a bunch of people. It's the
> truth whether you "much rather change the world instead of going along
> with it" or not.
> --
>  
How is a Free and open source stance not showing good faith? .  There 
are over seventy distributions based on Fedora. Its not religion or 
whims. Yes it will alienate a few proprietary software supporters who 
will have to get the software from elsewhere. What exactly is your 
solution that you are suggesting?. Vague notions dont help resolve 
anything.

-- 
Rahul 

Learn. Network. Experience open source.
Red Hat Summit Nashville  |  May 30 - June 2, 2006
Learn more: http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/

[Jeff Pitman]

On 12/27/05, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  What exactly is your
>  solution that you are suggesting? 
If Redhat is unwilling to signup to Fluendo's free-of-charge, open
source, but not entirely free software deal, that's understandable. At
least provide explicit instructions on how to get MP3 bootstrapped so
as to attract and retain new users. Instead of some vague FAQ in the
About page of Fedora. Maybe put in a yum.repos.d config commented out
that would allow easy installation with a disclaimer comment. You
know, user-oriented stuff.

--
-jeff

[Rahul Sundaram]

Jeff Pitman wrote:

> On 12/27/05, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>   
>
> >What exactly is your
> >solution that you are suggesting?
> >    
> >
>
> If Redhat is unwilling to signup to Fluendo's free-of-charge, open
> source, but not entirely free software deal, that's understandable. At
> least provide explicit instructions on how to get MP3 bootstrapped so
> as to attract and retain new users.
>  
This is a potential solution but one that requires careful thought.

>  Instead of some vague FAQ in the
> About page of Fedora. Maybe put in a yum.repos.d config commented out
> that would allow easy installation with a disclaimer comment. You
> know, user-oriented stuff.
>   
>  
How do you know about the legal implications of this?. Does it suit the 
project goals?. Like I said before halting the discussion now and taking 
it to the legal team would be the right solution. Be patient before 
putting in references to SCO which isnt the same thing at all.

-- 
Rahul 

Learn. Network. Experience open source.
Red Hat Summit Nashville  |  May 30 - June 2, 2006
Learn more: http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/

[Jeff Pitman]

On 12/27/05, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  How do you know about the legal implications of this?. Does it suit
> the
>  project goals?. Like I said before halting the discussion now and taking
>  it to the legal team would be the right solution. Be patient before
>  putting in references to SCO which isnt the same thing at all. 
Not sure, but I agree, it needs some thought.

--
-jeff

[Alan Cox]

On Tue, Dec 27, 2005 at 10:17:05PM +0800, Jeff Pitman wrote:
>  least provide explicit instructions on how to get MP3 bootstrapped
> so
>  as to attract and retain new users. Instead of some vague FAQ in the 
The USSA does not permit free speech of that nature. See the 2600 case about
decss. Even providing the URL to such subversive anti-large american company
information is considered an offence.

Alan

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Jeff Pitman a écrit :

>  Let's not forget that the "holier-than-thou" stance
> alienates quite a few users. 
And the permissive attitude of some distributions alienate others.
Fedora has to take one side on the IP rights debate. And no matter
which one is it, people on the other side will be "alienated" by this
choice.

I don't think we need another Mandriva/Linspire in the Linux world.

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot

[Jeff Pitman]

On 12/27/05, Nicolas Mailhot <Nicolas.Mailhot(a)laposte.net&gt; wrote:
>  Jeff Pitman a écrit :
>
>  > Let's not forget that the "holier-than-thou" stance alienates quite a
> few users.
>
>  And the permissive attitude of some distributions alienate others.
>  Fedora has to take one side on the IP rights debate. And no matter
>  which one is it, people on the other side will be "alienated" by this
>  choice.
>
>  I don't think we need another Mandriva/Linspire in the Linux world. 
I was actually thinking more along the lines of Ubuntu. Universe is
commented out in sources.list and it is extremely well documented on
how to get MP3 activated. The same can be done here.

--
-jeff

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On 1/2/06, Jeff Pitman <jeff.pitman(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  On 12/27/05, Nicolas Mailhot <Nicolas.Mailhot(a)laposte.net&gt;
> wrote:
>  > Jeff Pitman a écrit :
>  >
>  > > Let's not forget that the "holier-than-thou" stance alienates
> quite a few users.
>  >
>  > And the permissive attitude of some distributions alienate others.
>  > Fedora has to take one side on the IP rights debate. And no matter
>  > which one is it, people on the other side will be "alienated" by this
>  > choice.
>  >
>  > I don't think we need another Mandriva/Linspire in the Linux world.
>
>  I was actually thinking more along the lines of Ubuntu. Universe is
>  commented out in sources.list and it is extremely well documented on
>  how to get MP3 activated. The same can be done here.
>  
Actually no. I dont think Ubuntu is not formed inside of the United
States, while both Red Hat and Fedora are considered to be "Entities
within the United States" for the purpose of suing. In the US, a
simple comment and then document how to violate can be construed as
helping an illegal activity. While the US courts have been clear that
writing about how to pick a lock is not illegal.. they have not been
so clear with source code, depending on your Federal District it can
be considered illegal or legal.

I have no idea how Novell gets away with it.. it can be anything from
existing contracts/patent transfers to waiting to be sued so they can
fight that battle then. The issue though is that the standard suing
game in patents and other infringement claims is to go after smaller
players first and then go up the ladder with won cases as precedent.

--
Stephen J Smoogen.
CSIRT/Linux System Administrator

[Horst H. von Brand]

Jeff Pitman <jeff.pitman(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  On 12/27/05, Tom Lane <tgl(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  > The risk/reward ratio for Red Hat to consider indemnifying users against
>  > the two issues is completely different.  I don't think you'll see Red
>  > Hat going out on a limb for MP3 players. 
>  IOW, indemnification offers are just hot air. 
No, they aren't. Sure, Red Hat counts on never to have to pay out, but the
offer is still good (and gives the people on the other end of it a bit of
reassurance, which is exactly the point).

>                                                But, we know this
> isn't
>  indemnification for MP3s, it's a different beast. 
Why, you can sure get them. I.e., if you are liable to pay $$$ for using
MP3 without a valid license, I'd be happy to give you an indemnification
offer paying your costs (if it comes that far) for the very reasonable
amount of 2 x $$$ (to cover taxes, expenses, my own liability in this, ...).
Deal?

>                                                    The comment was to
>  highlight where Redhat's priorities are. For good or bad. 
No need to point them out here, except for trolling.

>  Let's not forget that the "holier-than-thou" stance
> alienates quite a few
>  users. 
So what? Fedora has its guidelines and goals, which include this "stance"
as you paint it. If you don't agree, either get elected as officer in the
relevant place to change it, or go elsewhere. It's a free world.
-- 
Dr. Horst H. von Brand                   User #22616 counter.li.org
Departamento de Informatica                     Fono: [phone]
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria              [phone]
Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile                Fax:  [phone]

[Thomas Vander Stichele]

On Fri, 2005-12-23 at 10:17 -0600, Patrick Barnes wrote:
>  Thomas Vander Stichele wrote:
>  > > That is not accurate.  Use of the MIT license doesn't change the patent
>  > > situation.
>  >
>  > Could you expand on that point a bit ? Calling something "the patent
>  > situation" doesn't tell me exactly what you mean.
>  >
>  >   
>  By "the patent situation", I mean that MP3 is covered by patents, and
>  that to use or redistribute any technology that takes advantage of a
>  patented technique, you must obtain a license from the patent holder. 
Just to make sure I follow you - this only applies to the binaries,
correct ? We both agree that patent law does not stop you from shipping
source code that implements patented techniques ?

As an example - I can take the freetype2 .src.rpm in Fedora and rebuild
it with a switch to turn on the patented hinting techniques.  Fedora is
shipping a piece of source code that implements patented techniques.

I just want to make sure we are only talking about the "patent
situation" when it comes to the binaries.

>  That is only part of it.  The other part is that we are in the
> United
>  States, where use of patented techniques without a license is illegal. 
>  Your licensing means we can redistribute from a copyright perspective,
>  but we are still constrained by the patent.  Under the GPL, we lose the
>  copyright if the codebase is impacted by a patent. 
No - you lose the ability to distribute the software under the GPL
because the GPL itself terminates itself. AFAIK this is unrelated to
copyright.
   
>  The point is that a contract is still needed for the binaries.
Yes, exactly.  There's no other way to satisfy the upstream patent
license requirements.

>  > Are you sure ? Fluendo offers any distributor the possibility of
> signing
>  > a contract that allows distributors to rebuild binaries for which the
>  > patent license Fluendo negotiated is transferable.
>  >   
>  That contract is a killer. 
Can you expand on that ? What makes it a killer ?

>    Also, it wouldn't make much sense for us to
>  include a plugin that can only be used with other non-GPL software. 
>  Most of the software in Fedora that uses the gstreamer backend is GPL
>  software. 
Totem is licensed under the GPL with the added exception/clarification
to allow for binary plugins to be used with it through GStreamer.  A
lawyer needs to decide if this is an interpretation of the GPL as
intended by the author (much like the situation for kernel modules) or
if it is an explicit exception.  It was also discussed with Rhythmbox
developers - I don't know if that got decided upon.  The author of
sound-juicer is going to add this exception as well.


>  What you're doing and what you're trying to do is great, but
> there is a
>  distinct reason that MP3 has been such a problem in the past.  You've
>  made some progress, but we are still a long way away from being where we
>  need to be in order to have free MP3. 
I don't think there will be free mp3 the way there is free Vorbis until
the patents expire.

FWIW, I'm not necessarily arguing Fedora should ship it.  I think it
would be great if Fedora would make a statement by saying "we don't want
to put this in the distribution because it is not a free format".  I
would be happy if Fedora would be sending users that message.  All of my
100+GB of music at home is in Ogg/Vorbis :)

Thomas


Dave/Dina : future TV today ! - http://www.davedina.org/
<-*- thomas (dot) apestaart (dot) org -*->
Bye bye long day
need to sleep so much
ninety hours straight
<-*- thomas (at) apestaart (dot) org -*->
URGent, best radio on the net - 24/7 ! - http://urgent.fm/

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

> Just to make sure I follow you - this only applies to the binaries,
> correct ? We both agree that patent law does not stop you from shipping
> source code that implements patented techniques ?
>   
>  
I am not sure about that. Even if everyone agrees on that here we still 
might need to consult the legal team before proceeding with this. 
Everyone here might reach a position that makes the obvious sense but 
thats not necessary what the law says. So lets talk to the counsel and 
halt the discussion for now.

-- 
Rahul 

Learn. Network. Experience open source.
Red Hat Summit Nashville  |  May 30 - June 2, 2006
Learn more: http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/

[Chris Adams]

Once upon a time, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)redhat.com&gt; said:
>  I am not sure about that. Even if everyone agrees on that here we
> still 
>  might need to consult the legal team before proceeding with this. 
>  Everyone here might reach a position that makes the obvious sense but 
>  thats not necessary what the law says. So lets talk to the counsel and 
>  halt the discussion for now. 
Red Hat has an inconsistent position on patents and source.  For some
things, the source is stripped of the code (so no more pristine source),
but for others, the source shipped still includes the problem code (it
just isn't compiled).

- For MP3, the code is removed.

- OpenSSH has the CSS code removed (which I guess is DMCA related not
  patent; it is also a pretty lame OpenSSH attempt to make a political
  "statement" by including undocumented, non-standard, and unneeded
  "features").

- OpenSSL has numerous patent bits removed from the source.  This is a
  change; IIRC in the past it was just built without the patented bits
  enabled (they were still in the source).

- NTFS code remains in the kernel source; the reason cited for not
  building it is patents.

- Font bytecode interpreter is disabled in freetype but the code remains
  and the spec file even provides a build option to include it.  From
  what I understand, it is not enabled due to patents.

Why is it okay to ship the source to some things that are not used for
patent reasons but not to ship the source to others?
-- 
Chris Adams <cmadams(a)hiwaay.net&gt;
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

> Red Hat has an inconsistent position on patents and source.  For some
> things, the source is stripped of the code (so no more pristine source),
> but for others, the source shipped still includes the problem code (it
> just isn't compiled).
>
> - For MP3, the code is removed.
>
> - OpenSSH has the CSS code removed (which I guess is DMCA related not
>   patent; it is also a pretty lame OpenSSH attempt to make a political
>   "statement" by including undocumented, non-standard, and unneeded
>   "features").
>
> - OpenSSL has numerous patent bits removed from the source.  This is a
>   change; IIRC in the past it was just built without the patented bits
>   enabled (they were still in the source).
>
> - NTFS code remains in the kernel source; the reason cited for not
>   building it is patents.
>
> - Font bytecode interpreter is disabled in freetype but the code remains
>   and the spec file even provides a build option to include it.  From
>   what I understand, it is not enabled due to patents.
>
> Why is it okay to ship the source to some things that are not used for
> patent reasons but not to ship the source to others?
>   
>  
Forwarded to the legal contact[1]. Thanks

-- 
Rahul 

[1] http://fedora.redhat.com/About/contact.html

[Elliot Lee]

On Fri, 23 Dec 2005, Thomas Vander Stichele wrote:

>  Just to make sure I follow you - this only applies to the binaries,
>  correct ? We both agree that patent law does not stop you from shipping
>  source code that implements patented techniques ? 
Even this is questionable. It depends a lot on what constitutes patent
infringement. Wikipedia sez "In U.S. law, an infringement may occur where
the defendant has made, used, sold, offered to sell, or imported the
infringing invention or its equivalent." Because software patents, such as
the MP3 ones, typically claim a "method by which X happens", the source
code could be argued to be the equivalent of the invention described in
the MP3 patents' claims. Form doesn't seem to be important in patent law,
only function - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_equivalents

I think a lot of this discussion here consists of us trying to be patent
lawyers when we're not. While free software hackers are generally much
more aware of IP law than your average Joe, we're just missing too much
knowledge of patent case law and general "legal flavor" to have any idea
which way this goes, legally speaking.

I expect there will be future developments in the media formats area of
Fedora, but for now it seems unlikely that we will do more than link to
the packages you have kindly made available.

Best,
-- Elliot
Red Hat Summit Nashville (May 30 - June 2, 2006)
http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/

[Thomas Vander Stichele]

On Fri, 2005-12-23 at 11:59 -0500, Elliot Lee wrote:
>  On Fri, 23 Dec 2005, Thomas Vander Stichele wrote:
>  
>  > Just to make sure I follow you - this only applies to the binaries,
>  > correct ? We both agree that patent law does not stop you from shipping
>  > source code that implements patented techniques ?
>  
>  Even this is questionable. 
I am not 100% sure of this either.  But there are enough examples out
there of companies doing this.  Lots of sample code available from
Intel's website for IPP can decode a whole range of patent-encumbered
formats, to give but one example.  Are they infringing by doing so ?

>  I think a lot of this discussion here consists of us trying to be
> patent
>  lawyers when we're not. 
Agreed :) It just seems like it should at least get some legal review
from Red Hat lawyers instead of being dismissed out of hand.

Thomas


Dave/Dina : future TV today ! - http://www.davedina.org/
<-*- thomas (dot) apestaart (dot) org -*->
If I say goodbye to love
will it go away ?
<-*- thomas (at) apestaart (dot) org -*->
URGent, best radio on the net - 24/7 ! - http://urgent.fm/

[Patrick W. Barnes]

Elliot Lee wrote:
>  On Fri, 23 Dec 2005, Thomas Vander Stichele wrote:
>
>  > Just to make sure I follow you - this only applies to the binaries,
>  > correct ? We both agree that patent law does not stop you from shipping
>  > source code that implements patented techniques ?
>
>  Even this is questionable. It depends a lot on what constitutes patent
>  infringement. Wikipedia sez "In U.S. law, an infringement may occur where
>  the defendant has made, used, sold, offered to sell, or imported the
>  infringing invention or its equivalent." Because software patents, such as
>  the MP3 ones, typically claim a "method by which X happens", the source
>  code could be argued to be the equivalent of the invention described in
>  the MP3 patents' claims. Form doesn't seem to be important in patent law,
>  only function - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_equivalents
>
>  I think a lot of this discussion here consists of us trying to be patent
>  lawyers when we're not. While free software hackers are generally much
>  more aware of IP law than your average Joe, we're just missing too much
>  knowledge of patent case law and general "legal flavor" to have any idea
>  which way this goes, legally speaking.
>
>  I expect there will be future developments in the media formats area of
>  Fedora, but for now it seems unlikely that we will do more than link to
>  the packages you have kindly made available.
>
>  Best,
>  -- Elliot
>  Red Hat Summit Nashville (May 30 - June 2, 2006)
>  http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/
>
>     
While my view is that the patent would cover only the binary form, legal
precedent suggests that the patent also covers the source form.  A fine
example of this would be the DVD decryption code - which has been deemed
illegal in U.S. courts.  As far as Fedora is concerned, this is a moot
point.  I can't think of any examples of entire packages that we
distribute only in source form.  Packages that we cannot build and
distribute in binary form and that downstream cannot build and
distribute (without regard to contracts) have typically been excluded
and left to projects like Livna.

-- 
Patrick "The N-Man" Barnes
nman64(a)n-man.com

http://www.n-man.com/
-- 
Have I been helpful?  Rate my assistance!  http://rate.affero.net/nman64/

[Paul W. Frields]

On Fri, 2005-12-23 at 11:32 -0600, Patrick Barnes wrote:
>  Elliot Lee wrote:
>  > On Fri, 23 Dec 2005, Thomas Vander Stichele wrote:
>  >
>  > > Just to make sure I follow you - this only applies to the binaries,
>  > > correct ? We both agree that patent law does not stop you from shipping
>  > > source code that implements patented techniques ?
>  >
>  > Even this is questionable. It depends a lot on what constitutes patent
>  > infringement. Wikipedia sez "In U.S. law, an infringement may occur where
>  > the defendant has made, used, sold, offered to sell, or imported the
>  > infringing invention or its equivalent." Because software patents, such as
>  > the MP3 ones, typically claim a "method by which X happens", the source
>  > code could be argued to be the equivalent of the invention described in
>  > the MP3 patents' claims. Form doesn't seem to be important in patent law,
>  > only function - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_equivalents
>  >
>  > I think a lot of this discussion here consists of us trying to be patent
>  > lawyers when we're not. While free software hackers are generally much
>  > more aware of IP law than your average Joe, we're just missing too much
>  > knowledge of patent case law and general "legal flavor" to have any idea
>  > which way this goes, legally speaking.
>  >
>  > I expect there will be future developments in the media formats area of
>  > Fedora, but for now it seems unlikely that we will do more than link to
>  > the packages you have kindly made available.
>  >
>  > Best,
>  > -- Elliot
>  > Red Hat Summit Nashville (May 30 - June 2, 2006)
>  > http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/
>  >
>  >   
>  While my view is that the patent would cover only the binary form, legal
>  precedent suggests that the patent also covers the source form.  A fine
>  example of this would be the DVD decryption code - which has been deemed
>  illegal in U.S. courts.  As far as Fedora is concerned, this is a moot
>  point.  I can't think of any examples of entire packages that we
>  distribute only in source form.  Packages that we cannot build and
>  distribute in binary form and that downstream cannot build and
>  distribute (without regard to contracts) have typically been excluded
>  and left to projects like Livna. 
The DVD decryption code is illegal due to DMCA restrictions, not
patents.  AFAIK no patent infringement issue has been raised to date
regarding DeCSS.  Even as non-lawyers, we still have to be careful not
to muddy the waters in arguments about copyrights, patents, trademarks,
DMCA, and other legal issues.

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE                          http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
 Fedora Documentation Project: http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/docs/

[Jef Spaleta]

On 12/23/05, Elliot Lee <sopwith(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  I expect there will be future developments in the media formats area
> of
>  Fedora, but for now it seems unlikely that we will do more than link to
>  the packages you have kindly made available. 
Even being able to link to this software as a prefered legal means to
get mp3 support worth be a noteworthy change in the legal landscape.

-jef

[Paul W. Frields]

On Fri, 2005-12-23 at 12:42 -0500, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
>  On 12/23/05, Elliot Lee <sopwith(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  > I expect there will be future developments in the media formats area of
>  > Fedora, but for now it seems unlikely that we will do more than link to
>  > the packages you have kindly made available.
>  
>  Even being able to link to this software as a prefered legal means to
>  get mp3 support worth be a noteworthy change in the legal landscape. 
While you're certainly correct, I would still like to see a *real* step
forward, which would be to fund a decoder for OGG with a significantly
lower "horsepower" requirement that portable audio player hardware
developers and vendors would be inclined to support.  

In the meantime, getting people to convert to OGG as the solution of
choice for non-portable (and some portable) audio would be easier with
this link available.  If the Fedora community decides to support linking
to the Fluendo plugin, IMHO we should make intentions clear in this
respect.

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE                          http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
 Fedora Documentation Project: http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/docs/

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Thomas Vander Stichele wrote:
> > That is not accurate.  Use of the MIT license doesn't change
> the patent
> > situation.
>  
>  Could you expand on that point a bit ? Calling something "the patent
>  situation" doesn't tell me exactly what you mean.
>  
>  FWIW, for most distributions the problem with mp3 code is precisely that
>  all these decoders were GPL-licensed, and the GPL has a clause that
>  terminates your right to distribute if you cannot distribute freely to
>  all (remember, IANAL).  So the problem was in the GPL, not in the code
>  or in the fact that patents apply. 
Red Hat in general and Fedora in particular are a tad different.

So far Red Hat has not seen GPL and other FOSS licensing as constraints 
that need to be worked around to earn money, but was always very serious 
about promoting clean FOSS practices (as evidenced by the re-licensings 
of the assets they bought, early Gnome support, etc).

Lots of distros have tried clever licensing schemes to get around FOSS 
IP "problems". Caldera was marketed as the distro for businesses (ie 
people who gave dang about FOSS ethics). Mandriva has often played this 
game too. For a very long time Suse didn't want to free yast. Need I 
write about ndsiwraper too ?

Well the market chose. It seems people that matter (which influence 
purchases) care more about FOSS ethics than marketing people think. At 
this point squandering all the goodwill accrued by taking a firm FOSS 
stand would be something very stupid for Red Hat to do. Because your 
offer is very nice, and as a user I welcome it, but I would never make a 
long-term commitment to a distro that swallowed such a poison pill. I 
might as well start using Solaris.

People write about Red Hat being the next Microsoft (or other such 
stupid things). The truth is the software Fedora delivers is as 
ethically pure as Debian's, and at least you don't have to wait years 
for it to get out of the release process.

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot

[Thomas Vander Stichele]

Hi,

>  Well the market chose. It seems people that matter (which influence 
>  purchases) care more about FOSS ethics than marketing people think. At 
>  this point squandering all the goodwill accrued by taking a firm FOSS 
>  stand would be something very stupid for Red Hat to do.  
I think that is a good position to take.  It's a different position to
take than saying "we can't ship this for legal reasons".

>  People write about Red Hat being the next Microsoft (or other such 
>  stupid things). The truth is the software Fedora delivers is as 
>  ethically pure as Debian's, 
In some cases even more - Debian is still shipping GPL'd mp3 decoding
code as part of the main distribution; see a recent discussion on
debian-legal.


Dave/Dina : future TV today ! - http://www.davedina.org/
<-*- thomas (dot) apestaart (dot) org -*->
I got your phone number baby
Call you sometime
Think I might go out tonight
Maybe give you a ride
<-*- thomas (at) apestaart (dot) org -*->
URGent, best radio on the net - 24/7 ! - http://urgent.fm/

[Rahul Sundaram]

Thomas Vander Stichele wrote:

> Hi,
>
>   
>
> >Well the market chose. It seems people that matter (which influence 
> >purchases) care more about FOSS ethics than marketing people think. At 
> >this point squandering all the goodwill accrued by taking a firm FOSS 
> >stand would be something very stupid for Red Hat to do. 
> >    
> >
>
> I think that is a good position to take.  It's a different position to
> take than saying "we can't ship this for legal reasons".
>   
>  
The legal situation is unclear and we have to fallback on lawyers for 
that but the principles of Fedora clearly is or should be to everyone 
involved in the community.

> In some cases even more - Debian is still shipping GPL'd mp3
> decoding
> code as part of the main distribution; see a recent discussion on
> debian-legal.
>   
>  
Debian is not a commercial organization in the US.  IMO Debian is taking 
a legal risk by doing this but even if they get sued, then  the court 
can just order them to stop. They dont have to worry about losing money. 
Red Hat can lose millions. For anyone wanting to sue Red Hat is a better 
target than Debian for the same reasons unfortunately and hence we have 
to be even more cautious about what we do compared to Debian et al. 
Fedora Foundation might change *some* aspects of this but the design 
principles dont go away.

-- 
Rahul 

Learn. Network. Experience open source.
Red Hat Summit Nashville  |  May 30 - June 2, 2006
Learn more: http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/

[Jef Spaleta]

On 12/23/05, Patrick Barnes <nman64(a)n-man.com&gt; wrote:
>  One of Fedora's policies is to enable downstream rebuilds and
>  redistribution. 
1) Fedora already has software where rebuilds are constrained by trademark law.
I can not modify mozilla however i want and rebuild it and
re-distribute it as "mozilla" because of mozilla's trademark policy. I
have to get mozilla's permission to reuse the trademark and the
branding. Fedora is already rebuilding 'impure' in the trademark
sense.

> Contracts are a no-go, and it is still no more legal
>  for us to redistribute the source code. 
Are you absolutely sure its not legal to redistribute MIT licensed
source code without a contract for the patents?  That's not my
nonlawyer understanding.  My understanding is, for GPL codebases, the
GPL itself self-terminates your ability to redistribute the sourcecode
when the patent constraints your ability to use the binary.  This is
the first opensource, non-GPL codebase for mp3 that I am aware of, so
whatever understanding we have for how to GPL interacts with patents
might not completely apply.


-jef

[Patrick W. Barnes]

Jeff Spaleta wrote:
>  On 12/23/05, Patrick Barnes <nman64(a)n-man.com&gt; wrote:
>  > One of Fedora's policies is to enable downstream rebuilds and
>  > redistribution.
>
>  1) Fedora already has software where rebuilds are constrained by trademark law.
>  I can not modify mozilla however i want and rebuild it and
>  re-distribute it as "mozilla" because of mozilla's trademark policy. I
>  have to get mozilla's permission to reuse the trademark and the
>  branding. Fedora is already rebuilding 'impure' in the trademark
>  sense.
>     
Fedora is the same way.  You can't modify it and continue to call it
Fedora.  However, you can redistribute it and rebuild it in pristine
form and continue to call it Fedora.  The same is true of Mozilla.  The
free software licenses we support aren't meant to work around
trademarks.  Trademarks are very important, and very different from
patents.  You are not free to build, use, and redistribute technologies
that use patented techniques, even in pristine form.
>  >Contracts are a no-go, and it is still no more legal
>  > for us to redistribute the source code.
>
>  Are you absolutely sure its not legal to redistribute MIT licensed
>  source code without a contract for the patents?  That's not my
>  nonlawyer understanding.  My understanding is, for GPL codebases, the
>  GPL itself self-terminates your ability to redistribute the sourcecode
>  when the patent constraints your ability to use the binary.  This is
>  the first opensource, non-GPL codebase for mp3 that I am aware of, so
>  whatever understanding we have for how to GPL interacts with patents
>  might not completely apply.
>
>
>  -jef
>
>     
You've almost got it right.  The GPL self-terminates without patent
freedom.  This means that if you don't have patent rights, you don't
have copyrights either.  With the MIT license, you still have copyrights
even if you don't have patent rights.  The problem is that we would
still need patent rights for MP3 technology to build, use and distribute
this MP3 plugin.  Also, this solution is GPL-incompatible, meaning we
can't integrate this plugin with GPL software.

-- 
Patrick "The N-Man" Barnes
nman64(a)n-man.com

http://www.n-man.com/
-- 
Have I been helpful?  Rate my assistance!  http://rate.affero.net/nman64/

[Jef Spaleta]

On 12/23/05, Patrick Barnes <nman64(a)n-man.com&gt; wrote:
>  Also, this solution is GPL-incompatible, meaning we
>  can't integrate this plugin with GPL software. 
who cares.... we have lots of GPL incompatible code in Fedora. I don't
even know why you bring this up. gst is LGPL and we are talking about
a runtime detected plugin to gst.

-jef

[Patrick W. Barnes]

Jeff Spaleta wrote:
>  On 12/23/05, Patrick Barnes <nman64(a)n-man.com&gt; wrote:
>  > Also, this solution is GPL-incompatible, meaning we
>  > can't integrate this plugin with GPL software.
>
>  who cares.... we have lots of GPL incompatible code in Fedora. I don't
>  even know why you bring this up. gst is LGPL and we are talking about
>  a runtime detected plugin to gst.
>
>  -jef
>
>     
This affects the players, too.  Theoretically, by law, we could not use
this plugin with Rhythmbox, but we could with Totem.  Our use of
GPL-incompatible code is really something we need to watch carefully, as
there is also room for legal interpretation on this matter.  I'll leave
those determinations to RH legal, though.

-- 
Patrick "The N-Man" Barnes
nman64(a)n-man.com

http://www.n-man.com/
-- 
Have I been helpful?  Rate my assistance!  http://rate.affero.net/nman64/

[Michael A. Peters]

On Fri, 2005-12-23 at 11:35 -0600, Patrick Barnes wrote:
>  Jeff Spaleta wrote:
>  > On 12/23/05, Patrick Barnes <nman64(a)n-man.com&gt; wrote:
>  > > Also, this solution is GPL-incompatible, meaning we
>  > > can't integrate this plugin with GPL software.
>  >
>  > who cares.... we have lots of GPL incompatible code in Fedora. I don't
>  > even know why you bring this up. gst is LGPL and we are talking about
>  > a runtime detected plugin to gst.
>  >
>  > -jef
>  >
>  >   
>  This affects the players, too.  Theoretically, by law, we could not use
>  this plugin with Rhythmbox, but we could with Totem. 
Rhythmbox uses gstreamer, it would be gstreamer that uses the plugin.
Rhythmbox does not link against the plugin, does not require the plugin,
etc. For that matter - neither does gstreamer.

I don't think there would be a legal problem.
If there was - can I use my X11 server which is MIT to display an emacs
window? What about emacs opening an X11 window?

I don't see a difference between that and rhythmbox using gstreamer
(lgp) which talks to this plugin.

[Thomas Vander Stichele]

Hi,


>  Rhythmbox uses gstreamer, it would be gstreamer that uses the
> plugin.
>  Rhythmbox does not link against the plugin, does not require the plugin,
>  etc. For that matter - neither does gstreamer.
>  
>  I don't think there would be a legal problem.
>  If there was - can I use my X11 server which is MIT to display an emacs
>  window? What about emacs opening an X11 window? 
You're talking about something that is MIT vs. something that is GPL or
LGPL - I don't think your analogy would tell us anything.

But even if X11 would be GPL or LGPL - interaction with the X server is done
through the X protocol.  Interpretation of the "linking to" language in
GPL and LGPL varies, but most parties agree that it boils down to "does
the code at runtime execute in the same execution space".  In practice,
this means "dynamic or static linking".

So if X were GPL/LGPL, and you had a binary application talking to it,
that would be fine as long as the libX11 used to implement the protocol
is MIT or similar.

>  I don't see a difference between that and rhythmbox using
> gstreamer
>  (lgp) which talks to this plugin. 
There really is.  If you are interested, read
http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/documentation/licensing.html

Thomas

Dave/Dina : future TV today ! - http://www.davedina.org/
<-*- thomas (dot) apestaart (dot) org -*->
Don't change your name keep it the same for fear I may lose you again
I know you won't it's just that I am unorganized and I want to find you
when
Something good happens
<-*- thomas (at) apestaart (dot) org -*->
URGent, best radio on the net - 24/7 ! - http://urgent.fm/

[Sean]

On Fri, December 23, 2005 11:26 am, Patrick Barnes said:

>  You've almost got it right.  The GPL self-terminates without
> patent
>  freedom.  This means that if you don't have patent rights, you don't have
>  copyrights either.  With the MIT license, you still have copyrights even
>  if you don't have patent rights.  The problem is that we would still need
>  patent rights for MP3 technology to build, use and distribute this MP3
>  plugin.  Also, this solution is GPL-incompatible, meaning we can't
>  integrate this plugin with GPL software.
>  
Hmmm I don't pretend to understand this stuff, but the GPL text seems
pretty clear on this matter:

"For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free
redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or
indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and
this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the
Program."

So the only question is, is the gstreamer mp3 plugin patent free or not?

Sean

[Jef Spaleta]

On 12/23/05, Patrick Barnes <nman64(a)n-man.com&gt; wrote:
>  Fedora is the same way.  You can't modify it and continue to call
> it
>  Fedora.  However, you can redistribute it and rebuild it in pristine
>  form and continue to call it Fedora.  The same is true of Mozilla. 
I do not think its true that a pristine build of the src.rpm as
shipped for mozilla by fedora is allowed according to Mozilla's
trademark policy. I have looked at this.. alot.

The Mozilla trademark policy says that you can not use the trademarked
mozilla icons in your rebuild of the mozilla sources unless you get
permission to do so. Even if you think its a verbatim rebuild of a
licensed binary.

The upstream mozilla sources are constructed in a way that default
rebuilds do not incorporate the mozilla trademarks. To get the mozilla
trademark icons into the build process you need to use some optional
arguments to the configure script to enabled them.
This is done explicitly to avoid people accidently running afoul of
the trademark policy. To use the mozilla trademarks in your downstream
build you must get permission from Mozilla... no if ands or buts. 
This doesn't transfer to verbatim rebuilds. There is absolutely no
languge in Mozilla's trademark policy that says trademark license to
use the mozilla marks transfer to a 3rd vendor with verbatim rebuilds
from an existing licensed binary from a 2nd vendor.  Each new vendor
who is rebuilding mozilla source must obtain a license to use the
mozilla marks regardless of where they obtained the source they are
rebuilding from.

Fedora has permission to use the trademarks in its builds and the
Fedora src.rpms enable the use of the trademark icons. I have seen
absolutely no language anywhere that tranfers this permission to use
the mozilla marks to anyone doing unmodified rebuilds of Fedora
mozilla packages. Anyone rebuilding with src.rpms from Fedora and
attempts to redistribute them also end up using the trademarked icons
unless they delibrately turn them off... even though they do not have
permission from mozilla to use those icons.
This situation breaks the "pure rebuild" policy. Anyone rebuilding
mozilla packages from fedora sources, even if unmodified.. must get
permission from mozilla to use the trademarks.

I'm more than welcome to be contradicted by the mozilla package
maintainer or someone else on the release team who has looked over the
mozilla trademark policy issues.

-jef

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Jeff Spaleta wrote:
>  On 12/23/05, Patrick Barnes <nman64(a)n-man.com&gt; wrote:
> > One of Fedora's policies is to enable downstream rebuilds and
> > redistribution.
>  
>  1) Fedora already has software where rebuilds are constrained by trademark law.
>  I can not modify mozilla however i want and rebuild it and
>  re-distribute it as "mozilla" because of mozilla's trademark policy. I
>  have to get mozilla's permission to reuse the trademark and the
>  branding. Fedora is already rebuilding 'impure' in the trademark
>  sense. 
And this does not matter at all because you still can produce a legit 
isofunctional package starting from Fedora sources (with a little work). 
This particular case is very different : the result of a rebuilt will 
*never* be legal, even with some code patching. So IMHO it's a big NO-GO.

The essence of the FOSS movement is you can take up from where others 
left you, and this offer clearly forbids this

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot

[Alan Cox]

On Fri, Dec 23, 2005 at 03:35:48PM +0100, Thomas Vander Stichele wrote:
>  Red Hat can sign a redistribution contract with Fluendo that allows
> them
>  to also rebuild this source code into binaries to which Fluendo's patent
>  license applies. 
Why should Red Hat treat Fluendo differently to other third party non-free
package providers for Fedora ?  Obviously the truely free bits of
Fluendo are one thing, the non-free bits appear to be a private matter
between Fluendo as an ISV and their customers who may or may not elect to
use Fedora and want a Fluendo maintained yum repository

[Rahul Sundaram]

Gianluca Sforna wrote:

> Hi all,
> is this announce from Fluendo referenced here:
> http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=13078
> already being discussed at Fedora Legal?
>
> It would be really nice to finally have mp3 support OUTB in Fedora.
>   
>  
Thats what I thought too initially but unfortunately it doesnt change 
the Free software situation even a tiny bit and consequently Fedora 
probably wont ship this plugin.  see 
http://www.fluendo.com/resources/fluendo_mp3.php.

"If you are living in a country where the mp3 patents don't apply you 
can of course use the source code provided by Fluendo (or anyone else) 
to get legal mp3 support onto your Unix/GNU/Linux desktop."

If you want mp3 support in a region where software patents are enforced 
you could use any recent version of RealPlayer or you can buy a 
proprietary plugin from Fluendo and all your gstreamer enabled 
application would potentially work seamlessly. Since gstreamer is sort 
of the Free desktop standard with GNOME and increasingly KDE and many 
other applications using it, this might be good news for them.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and all opinions expressed by me have so 
far are my own.

-- 
Rahul 

Learn. Network. Experience open source.
Red Hat Summit Nashville  |  May 30 - June 2, 2006
Learn more: http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/

[Nicu Buculei]

Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>  If you want mp3 support in a region where software patents are
> enforced 
>  you could use any recent version of RealPlayer or you can buy a 
>  proprietary plugin from Fluendo and all your gstreamer enabled 
>  application would potentially work seamlessly. Since gstreamer is sort 
>  of the Free desktop standard with GNOME and increasingly KDE and many 
>  other applications using it, this might be good news for them.
>  
>  Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and all opinions expressed by me have so 
>  far are my own. 
On the positive side, I think Fedora is allowed now to write in FAQ or 
release notes: "to play mp3 files, go to this specific Fluendo page, 
click and install the rpm"

-- 
nicu
my hats collection: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/hats/
Open Clip Art Library: http://www.openclipart.org
my Fedora stuff: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

>  On the positive side, I think Fedora is allowed now to write in FAQ or 
>  release notes: "to play mp3 files, go to this specific Fluendo page, 
>  click and install the rpm"
>  
We could have done that with RealPlayer long before. We dont do that 
since we dont support proprietary formats. If you want a Free software 
platform be prepared to support and use a Free and superior format like 
Ogg. Thats my take on it.

-- 
Rahul 

Learn. Network. Experience open source.
Red Hat Summit Nashville  |  May 30 - June 2, 2006
Learn more: http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/

[Thomas M Steenholdt]

Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>  We could have done that with RealPlayer long before. We dont do that
>
>  since we dont support proprietary formats. If you want a Free software 
>  platform be prepared to support and use a Free and superior format like 
>  Ogg. Thats my take on it.
>   
That's how i view it too...

As an added benefit, IMHO, ogg is a far better format for lots of reasons!
Users should "learn" to use it or simply install an mp3 plugin from 
somewhere. I think it's kinda nice that users are "exposed" to the open 
formats in this way.

/Thomas

[Thomas Vander Stichele]

On Fri, 2005-12-23 at 18:41 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>  Hi
>  
>  >
>  > On the positive side, I think Fedora is allowed now to write in FAQ or 
>  > release notes: "to play mp3 files, go to this specific Fluendo page, 
>  > click and install the rpm"
>  >
>  We could have done that with RealPlayer long before. We dont do that 
>  since we dont support proprietary formats. If you want a Free software 
>  platform be prepared to support and use a Free and superior format like 
>  Ogg. Thats my take on it. 
I think that's a great and courageous statement to make.  The reason
we're giving away this plug-in, legally, is because we feel users and
distributions should be given the choice to allow their users to migrate
from closed to open formats.

Thomas


Dave/Dina : future TV today ! - http://www.davedina.org/
<-*- thomas (dot) apestaart (dot) org -*->
If only you'd come back to me
If you laid at my side
wouldn't need no mojo pin
to keep me satisfied
<-*- thomas (at) apestaart (dot) org -*->
URGent, best radio on the net - 24/7 ! - http://urgent.fm/

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

> >We could have done that with RealPlayer long before. We dont do
> that 
> >since we dont support proprietary formats. If you want a Free software 
> >platform be prepared to support and use a Free and superior format like 
> >Ogg. Thats my take on it.
> >    
> >
>
> I think that's a great and courageous statement to make.
>  
Yes it is.

>   The reason
> we're giving away this plug-in, legally, is because we feel users and
> distributions should be given the choice to allow their users to migrate
> from closed to open formats.
>
> Thomas
>   
>  
Red Hat happens to be doing similar things all the time. Evince or GCJ 
for recent examples. Again I do believe your solution makes sense for a 
whole lot of people regardless of my stand on it.

-- 
Rahul 

Learn. Network. Experience open source.
Red Hat Summit Nashville  |  May 30 - June 2, 2006
Learn more: http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/

[Michael A. Peters]

On Fri, 2005-12-23 at 15:29 +0100, Thomas Vander Stichele wrote:
>  On Fri, 2005-12-23 at 18:41 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>  > Hi
>  > 
>  > >
>  > > On the positive side, I think Fedora is allowed now to write in FAQ or 
>  > > release notes: "to play mp3 files, go to this specific Fluendo page, 
>  > > click and install the rpm"
>  > >
>  > We could have done that with RealPlayer long before. We dont do that 
>  > since we dont support proprietary formats. If you want a Free software 
>  > platform be prepared to support and use a Free and superior format like 
>  > Ogg. Thats my take on it.
>  
>  I think that's a great and courageous statement to make.  The reason
>  we're giving away this plug-in, legally, is because we feel users and
>  distributions should be given the choice to allow their users to migrate
>  from closed to open formats. 
Not to mention there are very few portable players that support ogg.
Support for mp3 in portable players is everywhere.

I'm very excited about this - it would be really nice if Red Hat was
able to purchase a distribution license - assuming that there would be
no issues of third parties continuing to distribute official (sha1sum
matching) iso's.

[Thomas Vander Stichele]

On Fri, 2005-12-23 at 18:11 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>  Gianluca Sforna wrote:
>  
>  >Hi all,
>  >is this announce from Fluendo referenced here:
>  >http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=13078
>  >already being discussed at Fedora Legal?
>  >
>  >It would be really nice to finally have mp3 support OUTB in Fedora.
>  >  
>  >
>  Thats what I thought too initially but unfortunately it doesnt change 
>  the Free software situation even a tiny bit 
Could you expand a bit on what you mean by "the Free software
situation" ?

>  If you want mp3 support in a region where software patents are
> enforced 
>  you could use any recent version of RealPlayer or you can buy a 
>  proprietary plugin from Fluendo 
Fluendo does not sell a proprietary plugin for mp3 playback.  Fluendo
gives away both MIT-licensed source code, as well as binaries that come
with a patent license, built from this source code.

Thomas


Dave/Dina : future TV today ! - http://www.davedina.org/
<-*- thomas (dot) apestaart (dot) org -*->
My baby she knows
the weight that I'm under
<-*- thomas (at) apestaart (dot) org -*->
URGent, best radio on the net - 24/7 ! - http://urgent.fm/

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

> Could you expand a bit on what you mean by "the Free software
> situation" ?
>   
>  
The inability of distributions who want to support only open source 
software to distribute mp3 codecs

> Fluendo does not sell a proprietary plugin for mp3 playback.  Fluendo
> gives away both MIT-licensed source code, as well as binaries that come
> with a patent license, built from this source code.
>
>   
>  
Yes, you get a gratis codec but its still  patent encumbered in many 
regions. People who are willing to accept and use a binary codec an use 
it. I am not belittling your work. Having a codec that works across the 
entire set of applications that use gstreamer is fabulous but it doesnt 
mean that Fedora can ship it unless they accept to ship a binary codec 
which is not what Fedora is all about.  Real Player was available 
previously if the project wanted to do that.

-- 
Rahul 

Learn. Network. Experience open source.
Red Hat Summit Nashville  |  May 30 - June 2, 2006
Learn more: http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/

[Jef Spaleta]

On 12/23/05, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  Real Player was available
>  previously if the project wanted to do that. 
RealPlayer was a bit different... there was no source code available
for real's codecs. and on top of that realplayer  didnt really work
inside the framework of other applications. It wasn't so much a
"codec" as a seperate highly redudant and poorly integrated
application. Who needs that crap.

The gst plugin on the other hand has appropriately licensed source
code, source code that Fedora can distribute and source code that can
be redistributed by downstream users of Fedora.  That's a huge
difference from realplayer.  The MIT copyright license has very
different implications concerned re-distribution than the GPL licensed
codebases we have seen before.  The MIT license doesn't self-terminate
re-distribution of the sourcecode when patent restrictions on binaries
become invovled.   The situation is definitely worth taking a closer
look at.

-jef

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

>  Fluendo
> gives away both MIT-licensed source code, as well as binaries that come
> with a patent license, built from this source code.
>   
>  
Right. So my reference to the Free software situation was that the 
plugin that has a patent license is a binary one.

-- 
Rahul 

Learn. Network. Experience open source.
Red Hat Summit Nashville  |  May 30 - June 2, 2006
Learn more: http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/