kish wrote:
Rahul:
Internet makes the transition from local to international laws, fuzzy.
Could you please explain this.
A few practical examples:
Debian includes a mp3 decoder in main. For a non-profit (even though it
is established in US), there isn't much of a risk. The most you can do
is filing a suit and if you win, stop the distribution of it from that
point onwards. Usually can't claim much damages if any.
Mandriva (organization based on France where software patents are
invalid) includes mp3 codecs. However recently, you have the alternative
to get paid codecs from Fluendo via them. This is because they need to
license the patents to do this to be able to target the US market in a
legal way.
Ubuntu (Canonical is a based on Isle of man, Europe). They do not
include mp3 codecs out of the box but point to (non-patent licensed
free) codecs with a warning that this is legally ambiguous. You have the
option of buying paid codecs from Canonical similar to Mandriva.
LinuxMint, a volunteer derivative distribution of Ubuntu includes all
the codecs out of the box and has become more popular these days for
that reason. Canonical as a commercial organization won't take this risk.
Fedora (Red Hat is based in US) does not include nor point to the free
codecs. Neither does OpenSUSE for similar reasons.
References:
http://lwn.net/Articles/230042/
http://lwn.net/Articles/300829/
http://ostatic.com/173388-blog/canonical-opens-codec-sales-and-potential-can-of-worms
http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/25939
---
There a few questions that determine the potential course of action:
* Are you a commercial organization or a non-profit or volunteer
community? If you are doing it without commercial backing, there is
pretty much no risk since patent holders won't consider it worth their
time or money to pursue you.
* Are you based on a region where software patents are valid like US or
not valid like France or India?
* Are you trying to distribute directly only outside of areas where
software patents are valid or are you trying to sell to US markets? If
you are targeting only specific regions like India where software
patents are invalid, again there is no direct risk to you.
In summary,
Internet makes pretty much anything you distribute a potentially global
product but as long as you don't indulge in commercial trade to areas
where software patents are enforced actively and infringe on them, the
legal risk, if low to none. The laws are misguided in various places.
There is no right solution to that problem except fighting to get rid of
software patents and make sure, India doesn't end up in the same bad
situation.
Rahul
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