Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (95 mails)

[Clayton <smaug42@xxxxxxxxx>]

> I had to remove a number of software packages in the last days from the
> openSUSE Build Service for legal reasons.
>
> I do maintain also a list of this software, which is known (to our legal folk)
> to be illegal at this place:
>
>  http://en.opensuse.org/Application_Black_List

I fully support (and understand) the decision to remove the
packages... but... this raises this issue yet again...

We as a community NEED to find a solution to this problem.  Ignoring
it (like we have been doing) and hiding behind the old mantra of "it's
proprietary" or "it uses blah blah blah and that isn't licensed to be
used in Linux" is not fixing the problem, it is simply allowing it to
continue unchecked and unresolved.

So... lets find a way to LICENSE this technology or implement it in a
LEGAL way.  I know that Novell/SUSE looked into the cost of doing this
and rolling it into the SUSE releases and it was considered at that
time to be not possible due to the overall cost among other reasons
only lawyers understand.

Well... why can't we (the community... Novell... who?) provide a
binary that we as consumers can purchase - thereby fulfilling the
license requirements by providing the license fees to teh patent
owners - and then install on our computers?  What is really stopping
this?  A philosophical reason?  I detest software patents as much as
the next guy, but they are an unfortunate reality...

I would love to see a proper and legal solution to this.  As long as
there is no legal solution the end users will continue stepping over
the line because we have no other choice... other than to completely
shut ourselves off from the world... and that is not going to happen
in the real world... maybe in some fantasy world... but... the reality
is we as users demand a decent media player that supports the media
formats available (as MPlayer and Xine already do).

The ridiculous solution of shipping a crippled build of the Xine
library... is just that.. ridiculous... completely understandable from
the legal aspect, but... the wrong solution to the problem.

I don't have the magic answer... but I really hope I can light a fire
under the right people and the community can find a legal and
acceptable solution that provides the functionality instead of simply
breaking the applications rendering them totally useless to the end
users.

C.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@xxxxxxxxxxxx