[Fedora-packaging] Inaccurate information about LiVES package

[salsaman]

On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 12:30 PM, Jarod Wilson <jarod at redhat.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 01, 2010 at 12:11:19PM -0300, salsaman wrote:
> > Please answer the question. I have been personally assured by
> > representatives of the mplayer developers that the ffmpeg code contains
> *no
> > patented code*.
>
> Are these mplayer developers legal experts in patent law?
>
>
No, but I am assuming they know which codecs are included in a minimal build
of the libraries, and which codecs are known to be covered by
patents/licensing agreements.



> > I spent over two years fighting to convince the debian
> > developers that this was true, until they finally accepted it.
>
> Again, Debian doesn't have the same level of exposure as a distribution
> with a corporate backer in the US -- i.e. Red Hat. Red Hat legal has
> already made a call on this. They would have to clear any change in stance
> with respect to ffmpeg and the like.
>
>
Debian has an extremely capable legal team who have many years of experience
dealing with these matters. If something is cleared for inclusion in debian,
you can pretty much assume it is legally OK.



> > I am very tired of this discussion, and I am not prepared to go through
> it
> > all again with the fedora legal dept.
> >
> > Please just point me to just one registered patent that the core of
> ffmpeg
> > is known to violate.
> > Otherwise you are just spreading FUD.
>
> If you're not willing to talk to someone with legal expertise about a
> legal matter, then you're not going to get anywhere here. Sorry.
>
>
>
I am perfectly willing to talk to anyone with legal expertise in these
matters. I am just making the point that until you have seen an actual
patent which ffmpeg supposedly violates, making statements like "ffmpeg
violates patents !" is FUD.

(For the record, for example, I would not advise any distros to include
Mono, since I have seen actual US patents which it supposedly violates.)



In the meantime, perhaps you could include LiVES in fedora, since as I have
pointed out, ffmpeg/mplayer/mencoder are *not* required for either building
or running the application. LiVES will check at runtime if any of these are
available so users who wish to use "restricted" codecs can either build
mplayer from source or pull it from another distro.



Regards,
Salsaman.
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