[Mageia-dev] Mirror layout : Why validate software patents ?

Wed Dec 8 12:59:23 CET 2010

Le mercredi 08 décembre 2010 à 09:51 +0100, Wolfgang Bornath a écrit :
+> 2010/12/8 andre999 <andr55 at laposte.net>:
+> >
+> > By presenting a special set of repositories for patent-affected software, we
+> > could be seen as justifying these patent sharks.
+> > In their minds, why else would be accommodate them ?
+> 
+> Patented software is a reality in some countries. You can't discuss it
+> away with logical reason or morale arguments.
+> 
+> > Ok, I think, how many other distros have such repositories.  According to
+> > comments on the list : none.
+> 
+> Oh, really? Some (like Mandriva) do not have such a repository because
+> they do not distribute such software at all, PLF does that for
+> Mandriva. What about Ubuntu? What about Fedora?
+
+Fedora has rpmfusion ( http://rpmfusion.org/ ) and livna
+( http://rpm.livna.org/ ) for libdvdcss. There is stringent
+requirements :  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ForbiddenItems
+
+
+Ubuntu has a multiverse repository, and there is also various ppa, and
+medibuntu ( http://medibuntu.org/ ). Medibuntu is a fork of the PLF
+project ( even if they never credited us for the content of their start
+page ... ). Ubuntu is not as rigorous than Fedora or Debian.
+
+
+Debian either do not care of the patent problem, or use some individual
+repository ( the one of Marillat for example ). AFAIK, the main problem
+they had with mplayer were around the licensing and the technical issue
+more than patents. The ftp-masters group check packages, there is a FAQ
+of the various issues : http://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECT-FAQ.html ,
+but I never noticed any specific discussions around patents. Even the
+latest discussion about lame on debian legal was around the license
+used.
+
+Gentoo do not care at all, as does most source based distribution ( or
+the BSD, for the ports ). There is no use flag to filter for patents or
+anything, according to http://www.gentoo.org/dyn/use-index.xml
+
+Mandriva has PLF ( http://plf.zarb.org/ ), even if the patent issue is
+lightly treated ( given the lack of written policy on this regard ).
+
+Opensuse do not ship mp3 or various restricted codecs, according to
+http://opensuse-community.org/Restricted_formats/11.3 . AFAIK, this is
+handled by http://packman.links2linux.de/ .
+
+Arch seems to offers the software too.
+
+> > And what happens if there is a patent pursuit against Mageia or it's mirrors
+> > ?
+> > Even if we have a separate repository, the package in question might end up
+> > being withdrawn.  But it seems doubtful that one would want to withdraw all
+> > potentially threatened packages.
+> > (That would be a big victory for patent sharks.)
+> 
+> A patent pursuit will not be aimed against Mageia because Mageia is a
+> french organisation where there are no software patents. But lawsuits
+> could be aimed at those mirror maintainers who are runnning their
+> mirrors in such countries which allow software patents. 
+
+There is also the case of private society who could provides services
+around the distribution.
+
+-- 
+Michael Scherer
+
+