By sheer coincidence, this recently appeared at SchoolForge. It should be a nice big hunk of raw meat for you folks to chew on. Enjoy.
Joel --- On Wed, 10/3/12, LM <lme...@gmail.com> wrote: > From: LM <lme...@gmail.com> > Subject: [school-discuss] Re: need advice on building multimedia software > To: schoolforge-disc...@schoolforge.net > Date: Wednesday, October 3, 2012, 6:52 AM > I make a lot of assumptions about > Linux based on what I've read. I've > just found another fallacy in my assumptions about > Linux. My > assumption was that libre distributions approved by the FSF > would be > the best place to look to find out what software had the > least legal > issues. It seems that the FSF and the libre > distributions I looked at > are only concerned about copyright issues. They don't > appear > concerned about patent issues. > > Here's a list of software that the FSF avoids: > http://libreplanet.org/wiki/List_of_software_that_does_not_respect_the_Free_System_Distribution_Guidelines > > The interesting thing is that they'll take issue with a GNU > licensed > program linking to a BSD licensed program like > openssl. They consider > that a copyright violation. However, they don't list > any issues where > software is using patent encumbered technologies. > Issues like > problems combining OSI licensed copyrighted code could > actually hurt > the spread of Open Source software rather than improve it. > > I did find out the best place to look for information on > what software > would give the least legal concerns is with Linux > distributions > provided by companies making money from them. If the > companies are > big enough targets, they need to worry about the legal > situation. > Here's a list from Red Hat as to what they consider issues: > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Forbidden_items?rd=ForbiddenItems > > Note they include DVD playback in general and mp3 use as > issues. They > also have some interesting information on how other > distributions may > get around this (only in certain regions). > > As to ffmpeg, it appears to have mpeg and aac support in the > ffmpeg > code, not just in the libraries. So, it doesn't look > like a matter of > just using libraries with open codecs. One would need > to rip out code > from ffmpeg. This left me wondering why there wasn't > some flag or > mechanism to avoid using the code or some alternative > software that > would avoid the issues. I think most of the major Open > Source video > players out there use ffmpeg or similar libraries. > (Here's something > I found posted at the vlc site: > http://www.videolan.org/press/patents.html) I > also noticed mention in > more than one place that distribution of patented > technologies as > source code only was considered okay because it's considered > free > speech, but actually building the source code was another > issue. I > have a hard time understanding how this could be considered > "legally" > safe when similar situations that would involve copyright > infringement > (such as plagiarism) or trademark infringement would not > fall under > the category of being protected by free speech. > > The technologies that look like they might have the most > issues with > patents appear to be MPEG (2 and onwards which includes MP3 > format), > AAC ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding#Licensing_and_patents > ), H.264. One other disturbing thing, now that most > countries have > switched over to digital for television transmission they > are using > MPEG with their digital signals. So, not only were > publicly owned > airwaves sold by the US government, the replacement now > appears to be > patent encumbered. > > Unfortunately, I can see where schools in areas that need to > deal with > patent laws are more comfortable buying their software than > using Open > Source. I can't help wondering if there's anything > that can be done > about the situation. It would be nice if a school > could create, > distribute and use its own Open Source distribution without > having to > deal with a legal minefield. Any ideas? > ### > To unsubscribe from the schoolforge-discuss mailing list: > Send an e-mail message to majord...@schoolforge.net > with no subject > and a body of "unsubscribe schoolforge-discuss" >
