Hi everybody ! Just seen that mikala added panotools in the repository . (some algorythms library to build panoramic photographs) Very happy with this ! (thanks a lot...)
That's one of the first patent problems we may encounter : Long time ago, iPIX, a company from USA muliplied patent lawsuit against these free algorythms inventor and photographers using them (this company is now dead because of bankruptcy but the patent problem is still live... ) This patent problem was revoked in Europe by the European Patent Office but is still valid in USA and perhaps other countries (Japan...) There's a limitation to its use if you are in a country where the patent problem exists ! For this reason : Mandriva proposed a rpm limited to a 160° fov (field of view) support but we could find in PLF a rpm without limitation (up to 360°...). The spec was written to build differently for mandriva repo and plf repo... and this is the one imported... but it allows to build only a limited rpm (as it is not used with plf buildsystem)... We might have two kinds of libpano : - one without any legal issue in core-release, - and another without limitation in tainted-release Same problems will happen for other rpms whose 2 versions coexist (vlc, mencoder, etc... How can this be resolved ? For dev : It was easy to use the same spec for buildind mdv and plf different rpms For users : it was easy to choose between .mdv and .plf because when we are in a patent free country we may easily "upgrade" from mdv to plf : same version number, but later alphabetical extension. Is a special extension necessary for tainted rpms ?