On Thu, 2007-03-01 at 18:55 +0000, Zvi Devir wrote: > Sorry for jumping ahead, but this something I really don't understand. > Let's assume that there are currently a few valid US patents on JPEG, > MJPEG (There are probably more) as well as for MPEG4.2 (xvid divx wmv1 > and many more are MPEG4 part 2 implementations). My question is, so > what? A patent is a territorial legal being -- it is valid only where it > was granted. Even if JPEG is covered by hundreds of active US patents, > and some unenforceable EU patents, it has nothing to do with countries > in which the OLPCs will be distributed, since those patents are invalid > there.
That is a good way to sabotage a project. I'll leave the legal stuff up to our lawyers but taking a who cares attitude does not solve the issue. Countries can do what they want, which is why we are using the gstreamer framework. If they feel that mp3 or mpeg or whatever is legal to put on the machines they can do it but we are not going to ship with patent encumbered formats which could put some countries in awkward positions. That is not a decision we can make for the people receiving the laptops. BTW Jpeg is obviously ok to use since I have yet to see a distro pull it out. Not sure about MJpeg. -- John (J5) Palmieri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _______________________________________________ Devel mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.laptop.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
