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This is the wrong approach...This is the wrong approach...Posted Nov 5, 2007 14:32 UTC (Mon) by proski (subscriber, #104)In reply to: This is the wrong approach... by DonDiego Parent article: Codec Buddy in Fedora 8 Multimedia is not treated specially. RSA patent on its public key encryption algorithm was treated seriously. So was the GIF patent. But the JPEG patent was ignored. Some patents have strong backing, while others are just bogus and wound not stand in court. The problem specific to multimedia is that there is big money involved, so the opponents would have good lawyers. And it's not helping that the patent holders are often the companies that actually developed the codecs.
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This is the wrong approach... Posted Nov 6, 2007 13:25 UTC (Tue) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] The program though, asserts as FACT that the mentioned codecs require patent-licensing. I don't think it's in RedHats or OSS interest to help spread that claim. Some of the codecs -MAY- require patent-licensing in -certain- jurisdicitons, but that is a quite different statement. If you're in a no-sw-patent jurisdiciton, Codec-buddy is still going to helpfully inform you that you need a license. Which is plain and simple not true.
This is the wrong approach... Posted Nov 6, 2007 15:09 UTC (Tue) by skvidal (subscriber, #3094) [Link] >If you're in a no-sw-patent jurisdiciton, Codec-buddy is still going to >helpfully inform you that you need a license. Which is plain and simple not >true. If you are willing to submit patches to codec-buddy/codeina which figure out where you are and do or do not output the warnings based on that information I think they would probably be accepted. The problem is figuring out all the places where these patents matter. It's not _just_ the US anymore. -sv
This is the wrong approach... Posted Nov 6, 2007 15:51 UTC (Tue) by jfj (guest, #37917) [Link] Right! Also, there is the misinformation in this article that the *user* is illegal and may go to jail or something. Illegal (according to US courts) is the one who is selling mp3 encoders in the US (and parts of the world) without having paid patent fees. Patent problems are cofused with copyright infrigment. I do not believe that linking to ffmpeg is a patent violation like linking to pirated content is copyright infigment. And probably fedora's lawyers could argue that they are not even selling mp3 encoders, simply distributing free software and selling support. Someone can get the impression that Fedora is either pushed in the corner with the recent Novell deals, or in it for some kind of profit.
This is the wrong approach... Posted Nov 6, 2007 16:00 UTC (Tue) by skvidal (subscriber, #3094) [Link] It has nothing to do with selling anything. It only has to do with distribution. Also the user is not in danger of any kind but if fedora distributed anything covered under those patents then red hat could get sued into oblivion and then the user would lose his/her vendor of the fedora linux distribution. -sv
This is the wrong approach... Posted Nov 7, 2007 22:27 UTC (Wed) by DonDiego (subscriber, #24141) [Link] This however, is not what the warning text printed by CodecBuddy implies. It sounds as if the *user* needed a patent license. This is simply not true. The problems are strictly Fedora's, no end user is being harmed nor saved from any kind of harm by being deprived of codec support.
This is the wrong approach... Posted Nov 10, 2007 12:31 UTC (Sat) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] Are you sure about that? From Joe Shaw's blog:
This is the wrong approach... Posted Nov 8, 2007 9:39 UTC (Thu) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] That can't be done. There's no foolproof way of knowing where the user is located, though I guess the country that the user *claimed* to be from earlier in the installation-process would be a reasonable first guess. My suggestion would be simply to change the text -- for ALL users -- so that it says the equivalent of; "licensing of codecs may be required in some jurisdictions", rather than todays blanket-statement that it IS required full stop, no qualifications, which is just plain wrong.
This is the wrong approach... Posted Nov 8, 2007 9:53 UTC (Thu) by DonDiego (subscriber, #24141) [Link] Seconded. It's also not hard to list the affected jurisdictions. To the best of my knowledge that list would be rather short: USA.
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