[3972] in Release_7.7_team
Re: xmms 1.2.7 bundled with redhat 8+
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Eddie Kay)
Sun Aug 3 21:20:18 2003
Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.2.20030803204839.0352a3e8@hesiod>
Date: Sun, 03 Aug 2003 21:20:40 -0400
To: Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>
From: Eddie Kay <ichthyos@MIT.EDU>
Cc: release-team@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <1059956975.5106.12.camel@error-messages.mit.edu>
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At 08:29 PM 8/3/2003 -0400, Greg Hudson wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>I understand the inconvenience
here, but is there any reason to believe<br>
that these patent concerns aren't just as much of an issue for MIT
as<br>
they are for Red Hat? I know that Red Hat has sometimes been a bit
more<br>
paranoid about patents than is really warranted, but my understanding
is<br>
that MP3 decoding really is covered by patents, and the licensing
terms<br>
are not compatible with free software.</blockquote><br>
Hi Greg,<br><br>
Well, I'm certainly not an expert on the issue, but I did some quick
digging. Here's an excerpt from
<a href="http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/08/29/1633205">this</a>
NewsForge article that seems to clarify a lot of misconceptions about the "changes" that Thomson and Fraunhofer made to their royalty policy last year:<br>
<dl>
<dd>[Dave Arland, a U.S. spokesman for Thomson Multimedia,] says ... that if Ogg Vorbis or anyone else wants to produce multimedia encoders and players and give them away, that's fine with Thomson. But he said Thomson does not do that and never has; that its policy has always been to allow free use of the company's MP3 patents in "freely distributable software" while charging royalties to all commercial software or hardware makers that use Thomson's MP3 technology.<br><br>
</dl>Here's a German <a href="http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/vza-29.08.02-000/">news story</a> that quotes (in English) a spokesman from Thomson Multimedia to the same effect.<br><br>
It seems to me that the licensing terms are quite compatible with free software, as long as it isn't used for commercial purposes.<br><br>
--Eddie Kay</html>
