> Novell is a business, yes.
> Debian is not a business: yes.
> Redhat is a business: yes

I consider all these irrelevant.  Novell and Redhat shouldn't be
compared with Debian but rather with Canonical/Progeny.  Debian could
be compared with SuSE Linux OSS or Fedora.  Some are distributions,
other are businesses.  I don't see anything separating the situation
of Debian and Canonical/Progeny from the situation of SuSE Linux OSS
and Novell (or Fedora and Redhat).  Thus, I consider these facts
irrelevant.

> Debian has MP3: irrelevant
> Fedora doesn't have MP3: irrelevant.

The only reason I consider this slightly relevant is that Debian
people tend to be *extremely* careful in not violating the law.  Some
would say paranoid.  They even have a list devoted explicitly to this
(and, as you can see in 

   http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/09/threads.html ,

it has quite a bit of traffic; in this month it has distributed more
than half as many messages as this list!).  Yet they haven't found any
reasons to remove the MP3 decoders from their distribution.

> Alejandro, what you are saying is against common understanding of
> MP3 licensing, can you please find some supporting documents or
> discussion elsewhere, and not just a link to the large number of
> patents controlled by Thomson.  Until Alejandro has done that, move
> along, there is nothing to see here......

Well, for the discussion you could browse their archives.  A good
starting point, while not the only one, could be:

  http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/05/msg00226.html

I would consider the “common understanding” rather subjective.  I
would, instead, be inclined to think that MP3 decoders should be
included unless anyone can find a patent that can apply to a decoder.

Alejo.
http://azul.freaks-unidos.net/

---=(  Comunidad de Usuarios de Software Libre en Colombia  )=---
---=(  http://bachue.com/colibri )=--=( [EMAIL PROTECTED]  )=---

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Reply via email to