How does this work, exactly? [LWN.net]

How does this work, exactly?

Posted Jun 2, 2025 16:24 UTC (Mon) by intelfx (subscriber, #130118)
Parent article: OpenH264 induces headaches for Fedora

I'm clearly not an IP lawyer, and, while I understand that neither are the vast majority of LWN readers (and even if some are, they are not *my* lawyers), perhaps someone could shed an informative/educational light onto this batch of questions:

Where, exactly, is the line that must not be crossed to remain free of software patent responsibilities? And what, exactly, happens when that line is crossed by different entities?

1. If Fedora distributes H.264 decoders, it is "on the hook" for the patents that cover those decoders.
2. If Fedora "points users to RPMFusion", it is presumably not "on the hook". Then who is? Nobody? RPMFusion? Or the users (with the assumption that a single user is too small of a target for the MPEG LA to go after, but with the understanding that the user is still breaking the law technically)?
3. Why does RPMFusion still exist, and why it was not sued into oblivion already? Is it hosted in a jurisdiction that does not recognize software patents?
3. What if Fedora adds RPMFusion to the default list of repositories?
4. What if Fedora adds RPMFusion to the default list of repositories, and sets up the package priorities such that the decoder gets installed on first update?
5. What if Fedora adds a dialog that asks the user to click a button to install the decoder from RPMFusion?

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How does this work, exactly?

Posted Jun 2, 2025 16:31 UTC (Mon) by daroc (editor, #160859) [Link]

Those are all excellent questions that I, too, do not have enough law-school education to answer correctly.

I can take a vague stab at some of them, maybe, by pointing out that the exact boundaries of what is and is not patent infringement is likely to be decided by a judge (or de facto decided by the lawyers who evaluate legal risk, at least). So while there may not be much of a _technical_ difference between Fedora letting uses add RPM Fusion repositories manually versus having a button to do it, it still seems likely to me that there's enough of a _practical_ difference that it could sway a judge.

The fact that these things are decided by judges, who are human, using their best judgement also means that there may not even be a hard-and-fast rule for what is or is not acceptable until someone has a precedent-setting lawsuit about it.

How does this work, exactly?

Posted Jun 2, 2025 16:35 UTC (Mon) by jzb (editor, #7867) [Link]

This won't answer all your questions, but LWN covered RPM Fusion in 2007. It is presumably hosted outside the U.S.

I would imagine it's also not a particularly enticing target: it could be shut down, but the patent holders wouldn't be able to get any real money out of it. They probably see more benefit from this small set of users being able to interact with fee-paying services, etc., than trying to wring license fees out of that small set of users.

Red Hat, and now IBM, have far deeper pockets and would make a much more attractive target. Pointing to RPM Fusion in the default list of repos could be seen as contributory infringement. Not a worthwhile risk to take, IMO.

How does this work, exactly?

Posted Jun 2, 2025 20:04 UTC (Mon) by JulianGro (subscriber, #170093) [Link] (2 responses)

As someone who looked into this for his own organization: The problem is that nobody knows how things work exactly.

Our organization is in Germany, which pretty clearly shouldn't see any of the h264 patents as valid. However, other countries might still drag our organization in front of their courts. Other countries might also hold individual contributors instead of the organization accountable. Then there are extradition agreements.
If it was just me, I would take the risk and break the patents. But we have at least one contributor who is worried about knowingly breaking laws in other countries, which have extradition agreement.

Alternatively, you can get a license from the relevant consortium; Not only does that not guarantee that you aren't still infringing on patents, but it is also an 80-page document full of stuff that doesn't make any sense. I cannot sign something like that in good faith. And realistically nobody can sign that in good faith.
Not to mention, you need multiple licenses, because usually you use a proprietary audio codec like AAC together with h264. By signing a contract with then, you also imply that their patents are legitimate, which I would also never want to do if I can help it.

So in our case, we just accept that we won't support proprietary codecs. It's a pretty big annoyance in our case, but there is just no way to do it right.

How does this work, exactly?

Posted Jun 3, 2025 7:38 UTC (Tue) by taladar (subscriber, #68407) [Link] (1 responses)

At least not using proprietary codecs at all has the side-benefit of hurting the entire concept of proprietary codecs.

How does this work, exactly?

Posted Jun 3, 2025 21:46 UTC (Tue) by ocrete (subscriber, #107180) [Link]

Just to be clear, H.264 and AAC are not proprietary in any sense. They've been created by UN standards organisation (ISO) for which all the countries in the world can participate. The annoying thing is that they're created to maximize patent royalties to participating companies.

How does this work, exactly?

Posted Jun 2, 2025 21:39 UTC (Mon) by mcatanzaro (subscriber, #93033) [Link] (3 responses)

> Where, exactly, is the line that must not be crossed to remain free of software patent responsibilities?

Don't make it work. If users are happy, you have crossed the line.

I'm not even sure whether pointing is allowed. Notably the official documentation https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageKit_Items_Not_Found... takes great pains to not tell you where to find what you are looking for.

How does this work, exactly?

Posted Jun 4, 2025 10:23 UTC (Wed) by pbonzini (subscriber, #60935) [Link] (1 responses)

Is the 404 for "Third party repositories" intended? Probably not but it does count as not telling you where to find what you are looking for.

How does this work, exactly?

Posted Jun 4, 2025 13:40 UTC (Wed) by mcatanzaro (subscriber, #93033) [Link]

Surely not intended. :)

Punt to Flathub?

Posted Jun 9, 2025 23:20 UTC (Mon) by DemiMarie (subscriber, #164188) [Link]

Has punting and pointing users to Flathub been considered? In this scenario, Fedora would not ship apps requiring codecs. When the user searched for them in GNOME Software or similar, they would find the Flathub versions, which would work fine.

How does this work, exactly?

Posted Jun 2, 2025 21:40 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (2 responses)

> Where, exactly, is the line that must not be crossed to remain free of software patent responsibilities? And what, exactly, happens when that line is crossed by different entities?

Make sure you don't go any further than running the software?

By pretty much EVERY statute or common law in pretty much EVERY jurisdiction, "pure" software is not "eligible subject matter". There are plenty of patent lawyers who would beg to differ, but equally for every such patent lawyer there 10, 20 sleight-of-hand tricks to confuse hardware and software, and not one argument that actually works as applied to pure software.

Proof? Well, could you get a patent on your high school exam paper? You'd get laughed out of court!

Go back 40, 50 years, pretty much ALL programs would start their life on paper looking like a high school exam paper. Not eligible subject matter. They were then mathematically transformed into computer files - again not eligibile subject matter. Next they were typically fed through a compiler - not eligible subject matter. You get the gist - mathematical transformation is not eligible subject matter!

And finally, at the end of it all, they get fed through an ALU. An Arithmetic Logic Unit - the brains of what we now call a CPU. That's logic, that's maths, that's NOT ELIGIBLE SUBJECT MATTER.

Finally we come to print our results on a printer. Using a printer to print (aka "do what it was designed to do") is not eligible subject matter! And that printout could be a hard copy of the source or binary of our program - we've come full circle, and there is NO ELIGIBLE SUBJECT MATTER ANYWHERE.

Likewise, using a Visual Display Unit to display the program's output is not eligible subject matter.

Or making a motor motor. Etc etc.

Of course, there's plenty of eligible subject matter inside the printer. Or the VDU. Or the motor. But that's technology, not maths. Software is pure maths all the way round the circle, and maths is not accepted as eligible subject matter.

Personally, I divide this world (collectively called philosophy) into three distinct areas. Mathematics is the building of internally self-consistent models. Software lives entirely in this world. Science consists comparing those models with the way the real world behaves, in an attempt to understand it. And technology consists of manipulating the real world so that it mimics the model you want it to, not the model it would choose if you left it to its own devices.

Patents belong very firmly in the technology camp.

The problem is the classic one of people mis-classifying stuff. Computer Science is a complete mis-nomer - it should be the study of how computers physically work, and nothing to do with the logic behind them. Physics is classed as Science, when in reality most of it is either Mathematics (Theoretical Physics) or Technology (Experimental Physics). A large chunk of what I thoroughly enjoyed studying as Chemistry is actually theoretical physics (atomic chemistry, the study of electron levels and chemical bonds).

In real life people are far too ready to define things as belonging on "their" side of the fence, rather than see that actually their "garden" contains several fences. Which sadly also means they miss a lot of other people working in the same garden because they've misclassified their fences.

Cheers,
Wol

How does this work, exactly?

Posted Jun 3, 2025 14:55 UTC (Tue) by jhoblitt (subscriber, #77733) [Link]

Sir, your obscuring the issues with facts...

The issue is a cartel must be paid. Logic is secondary.

How does this work, exactly?

Posted Jun 4, 2025 9:09 UTC (Wed) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

Software is pure maths all the way round the circle, and maths is not accepted as eligible subject matter.

That is as may be. But if you look at, e.g., Dennis Ritchie's famous SUID patent, you will find that it takes considerable pains to explain what it does in terms of hardware, presumably in order to avoid the “software is maths” issue. Which is (a) typical of the genre, and (b) must have been enough to make the patent office happy, at least.