[Mageia-dev] [RFC] Moving various packages/codecs to tainted

Wed Jan 11 12:29:32 CET 2012

Colin Guthrie a écrit :
+> 'Twas brillig, and andre999 at 10/01/12 03:12 did gyre and gimble:
+>    
+>> Juan Luis Baptiste a écrit :
+>>      
+>>> On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 6:38 PM, Anssi Hannula<anssi at mageia.org>   wrote:
+>>>
+>>>        
+>>>> I'm absolutely fine with either moving codecs to core or tainted, as
+>>>> long as we are at least somewhat consistent in what is in core and what
+>>>> is in tainted. However, I do not really like the reasoning "we do it
+>>>> like mandriva did no matter if it is sensible or not".
+>>>>
+>>>> I'd possibly understand "we do it like mandriva did because they didn't
+>>>> apparently have problems with these pkgs", but it IMHO wouldn't really
+>>>> fly as we could just s/mandriva/ubuntu/ in that statement (and Ubuntu is
+>>>> much more prominent than mdv IMO) and then everything would be in
+>>>> core...
+>>>>
+>>>>
+>>>>          
+>>> IMHO, for sake's of simplicity and user friendliness, we should leave
+>>> everything in core until there's a real threat from someone about
+>>> patents. Surely if it appears some day,  we wouldn't be the first ones
+>>> to be approached which would leave us plenty of time to correct this
+>>> issue and move affected packages to tainted.
+>>>
+>>>        
+>> I strongly agree with this approach.
+>>      
+> I don't. Especially not with this message now in a public forum
+> admitting that we'd just be sticking our heads in the sand with regards
+> to this issue.
+>
+> If any legal action was taken, any efforts to plan for and deal with the
+> issues involved will be seen as a sign of good faith. This is very much
+> the opposite and thus would lead to stronger legal action should it ever
+> come to that.
+>
+> I really do not get the problem with splitting things out into the
+> appropriate repos.
+>
+> The only real question is about whether to enable those repos by default
+> and include the RPMs.
+>    
+
+We're talking about codecs, essentially the decoders which are used to 
+read encoded files.
+If the patent claims are valid/enforceable (and most aren't), it is up 
+to the patent holder to decide if it is in their interest to enforce the 
+patent claims.
+Since they will normally attempt to collect royalties from those using 
+the encoders to generate encoded content, it is in their interest avoid 
+enforcing claims against users of decoders, as the more such decoders 
+are used, the more the demand for the corresponding encoders, and thus 
+the more royalties they will collect.  So it seems to me entirely 
+logical to await notification that they indeed intend to collect 
+royalties for these codec decoders.
+However I do agree that we should put encoders that seem to be covered 
+by valid patents in some countries in "tainted".
+
+This might seem to be not worth the effort, particularly since, to the 
+best of my knowledge, even in software patent impacted countries such as 
+the U.S., no Linux mirror has chosen to not carry all the supposedly 
+patent-affected packages produced by the distro.
+However by including codec decoders on our isos, we will give users a 
+much more friendly experience, particularly those that can not use 
+online repos during installation.
+We have to decide whether we would consider a package affected by patents.
+I'm just trying to suggest that we hold off putting codec decoders in 
+"tainted" until we know that the patent holder intends to enforce the 
+patent (against us or other similar users).
+
+Of course we could always be dogmatic about it.  It would be interesting 
+producing a release the next time there is a claim against the Linux kernel.
+
+> The split is a purely technical decision that should (in theory at
+> least) have zero impact on a default install unless we specifically
+> decide to allow it to.
+>    
+
+One could say that there is a considerable political side of the issue.
+Is the claim potentially valid ? (We probably already consider that, to 
+some degree.)
+Does the patent holder intend to enforce it, in our context.  (We should 
+consider that.)
+
+As far as the impact goes, if we don't separate likely enforced from 
+other patent claims, we won't be able to provide codecs on our DVD's, 
+which will impact those who can not reliably do a network install.
+I'd rather that Mageia be known as a user-friendly distro.
+
+> Col
+>
+>    
+
+My 2 cents :)
+
+-- 
+André
+
+