[Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc

Wed Oct 13 10:09:21 CEST 2010

Le mercredi 13 octobre 2010 07:24:32, Marc Paré a écrit :
+> Le 2010-10-13 01:14, Tux99 a écrit :
+> > On Wed, 13 Oct 2010, [UTF-8] Marc ParÃ© wrote:
+> >> Le 2010-10-12 22:04, Tux99 a Ã©crit :
+> >>> According to your logic that would mean we can't include ssh, openssl,
+> >>> pgp, and even https support in any browser.
+> >>> Does that seems reasonable to you?
+> >>> 
+> >>> You need to face it, it would be impossible to make a distro that is
+> >>> legal in every country of the world and at the same time is of any use
+> >>> to the users.
+> >>> Therefore I don't see the need why we should comply with US patent laws
+> >>> when we don't comply with for example Chinese encryption laws.
+> >> 
+> >> All of your points are exactly what I am trying to point out and even
+> >> reinforce my concerns. These are all true. This is why, in my opinion,
+> >> the Mageia distro should not be installing all of these controversial
+> >> software packages by default.
+> > 
+> > Are you seriously suggesting Mageia should produce a distro without ssh,
+> > openssl and even with all browsers stripped of https support?
+> > 
+> > I can imagine how popular that would be with the majority of users...
+> > 
+> >> This would then remove that layer of liability from the Mageia
+> >> project group. In my opinion, Mageia should be wary in wanting to
+> >> install a fully functioning distro if this means using software packages
+> >> that may get it into trouble (Mageia itself).
+> > 
+> > But here lies the mistake in your reasoning. Mageia doesn't have to
+> > exclude all those packages, since the only liability Mageia has, is
+> > towards the French laws.
+> > 
+> > So the sensible choice is to base the choice of packages to include on
+> > French law. It is up to the user to make sure he/she only installs and
+> > uses packages that are legal in his/her country.
+> 
+> Obviously running in circles here, I guess we both have our opinions and
+> we let it rest at that.
+> 
+> Marc
+
+There is no solution.
+
+However, i would like to emphasis that VLC project - http://www.videolan.org/ 
+- is based in France - and i don't remember VLC being sued and found guilty of 
+patent infringement. Anyone can download VLC even from website located in USA 
+(on cnet.com for example). VLC is not a small project so i guess if there were 
+good reasons to sue the project for patent infringement it would have been 
+done. VLC also hosts libdvdcss project (among other surely covered with 
+patents in USA)
+
+Archlinux which provides libdvdcss have at least one mirror located in the 
+USA, as plf have also at least one mirror there.
+
+So my feeling is that we should distribute codecs to access multimedia 
+contents out-of-box (provided that the software are free - libre - is there 
+are not free, that's for non-free media)
+
+Olivier
+