[Mageia-dev] rehashing the faac issue

Tue Oct 2 14:02:56 CEST 2012

On 10/02/2012 07:50 AM, Wolfgang Bornath wrote:
+>
+> We have software in 4 different flavors:
+> 1. free software (FOSS), most of them distributed under any of the GPL versions
+> 2. non-free software, meaning they can not distributed under such
+> licenses as the GPL. Mostly it's closed source software (like firmware
+> for devices like graphic cards or some wifi chips)
+> 3. tainted software, this is cost-free but patented software. In
+> countries which obey software patents (like USA) it is not allowed to
+> be distributed.
+> 4. then there is software which is non-free AND tainted.
+>
+> Of course this special point #4 is a bit bureaucratic. As "tainted"
+> (aka patented) is the stronger restriction than non-free we should
+> also place faac into "tainted" as it matches the sentence from the
+> MGA1 notes anyway (as quoted in Christian's mail).
+>
+> In any way I agree that this more or less academical dispute about
+> faac should not make it impossible to make faac available.
+>
+That's my point.  I get that the official definition says that tainted 
+stuff should be FOSS.  I just don't understand WHY that restriction is 
+of interest to anybody.
+