On Tuesday 27 August 2002 07:43 pm, Adam Williamson wrote: > As we were discussing the mp3 patent issue in the Mandrake IRC channels, > a thought occurred to me. I remembered that it's legal to distribute the > source code of something that breaks US software patent legislation > (because it's considered the blueprint of something that infringes > patent, not the device as such). This is already known to Mandrake - for > example, it's why the -mdk .src.rpm of freetype can include an option to > compile with the bytecode interpreter enabled (which produces the plf > binary rpm; compiling the same .src.rpm with it disabled produces the > mdk binary rpm). So if we do have to strip mp3 stuff from 9.0, could we > not simply include the relevant *source* rpms in all versions of the > distribution, together with extremely prominent instructions on how to > recompile them (or even an option within rpmdrake to do so), coupled > with the necessary warnings that doing so would be illegal under US law? > This would seem to combine the bare minimum of legal compliance with the > minimum possible disruption for users...just an idea.
Warning: I am not a lawyer. I believe you're right, but the farther you go towards making stuff automatic, the more likely you are to be infringing the patent. Basically, shipping the original tar.gz is probably legal (if the user gets to type 'make'); SRPM - probably legal with caveats; SRPM with automatic installer - probably not safe. Since only a court can determine what's legal and what's not, Mandrake decides what they need do to be absolutely safe. My personal opinion: Mandrake should make it as easy as possible for users to compile and install MP3-playing stuff on the machine. Include the original sources on the CD, provide instructions, that type of thing. -- -- Igor
