Am Sam, 2003-08-02 um 05.54 schrieb Gerald Henriksen: > On 02 Aug 2003 03:46:37 +0200, you wrote: > > >> Keep in mind that Mandrake is a French company and patent software don't > >> apply in France. > > > >so patent violations can't get inforced in france, am i getting you > >right? i would be surprised if it's the same in germany, nevertheless > > Patent laws vary from country to country, and the tolerance for risk > can also vary from company to company. > > However, as has been discussed previously on various Red Hat lists the > problem with the mp3 decoders is that they are incorrectly licensed. > > Basically what it comes down to is that while the mp3 decoders for > Linux have been released under the GPL, the restrictions the patent > holder has placed on mp3 violate the GPL, hence the mp3 decoders are > in a legally questionable position. The patent holder has stated that > they are not interested in collecting royalties from software decoders > distributed with an OS like Linux or Windows (so in theory a legal > open source mp3 decoder could be created). However, if that software > decoder is then used within a hardware product royalties would be > payable, and it is this further restriction that violates the GPL. > > >suse sontains at least an mp3-decoder by default (but they might have > >payed for it-if suse can do it, why not red hat?!). > > I doubt Suse has payed for it, but instead they have chosen to ignore > the fact that the software licence is a problem. > > >despite all this, my question was if it would be legally feasable to > >enable xmms (or whatever program) to get the plug automatically from the > >net after rhl is installed on the users pc. > > Perhaps if there was a decoder under a valid licence Red Hat could > look at it again, but until then it won't happen. > > Suse and Mandrake may be willing to look the other way, but Red Hat > has (rightfully) chosen to take the high road and not include software > that does not have a valid licence. > > >> > 4. rh9.x should ship with flash-, java- and whatever plug-in already > >> > installed in browsers > >> > >> Check the license of RHL : > >> http://ftp.rhnet.is/pub/redhat/linux/9/en/os/i386/EULA > >> > >> It's free OS. With java and/or flash we loose this GREAT benefit. > >> To gain this benefit we (and you) need to make some efforts (download > >> java, flash...). > > > >so red hat would have to pay money for distributing java-, flash-plugin? > >because i as an enduser get those for free (because those companies are > >interested in establishing their standards), i thought that it would be > >the same for vendors. > > It can vary. The big problem from Red Hat's perspective though is > that they are not open source and Red Hat's postition is that anything > included in Red Hat Linux must be open source (which is good both from > a purity point of view as well as the fact that Red Hat can then if > necessary fix any bugs themselves). Java, Flash, NVIDIA drivers, etc > are binary only and so cannot be included with Red Hat Linux. but certainly not from a business point of view, because it gives other vendors (who are not that strict) a competative advantage, and in the long run, it likely will hurt their business! again, i find this position shortsighted and unnecessarily selfrestricted, but it seems that the only viable option is to accept it. > -- > Rhl-list mailing list > Rhl-list@xxxxxxxxxx > http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/rhl-list
