[IAEP] ANNOUNCE: New F11 XO-1build 115 Paraguay

[Bernie Innocenti]

On Sat, 2010-03-27 at 12:02 +0100, Sascha Silbe wrote:
> Can we agree on some naming scheme that distinguishes between 
> F11-on-XO1.5 and F11-on-XO1? Having both named exactly the same is 
> rather confusing.

Good point, I'll see what I can do.


> > * Add patent-encumbered multimedia codecs (gstreamer-plugins-bad)
> So who can legally
> a) distribute and
> b) use
> this image?

The short answer is: anyone :-)

Unlike copyright infringement, patent infringement is not by itself an
illegal act [1].

The actual question is: who can *safely* use/distribute this image
without being asked to pay royalties by the patent holder?

 1) People living free nations where software patents are not applicable

 2) Subjects who are not worth suing for patent infringement

 3) Anyone who can hide their act from the patent holders ;-)

 4) Subjects who already hold a license, of course

 5) Subjects on which the patent holders declined to enforce
    license fees (the Wikipedia mentions some for MP3 [2])

Since I'm writing this from outside the US, I'm not required to say that
I'm not a lawyer to give my opinion on legal matters, but of course you
may want to double-check these statements with someone more competent.

People generally lump proprietary software and patent-encumbered
software together, calling both of them "non-free". However, software
containing an idea that was patented somewhere isn't "non-free" per se.
This label shall be put on the specific nations restricting its usage.

I'm interested in debating this subject further, but we're probably
off-topic for this list. Let's move follow ups off-list, or to a more
specific list.


[1] This was explained by the president of the FFII at FOSDEM:
    http://archive.fosdem.org/2008/schedule/events/257

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3#cite_ref-44

-- 
   // Bernie Innocenti - http://codewiz.org/
 \X/  Sugar Labs       - http://sugarlabs.org/