[Mageia-dev] rehashing the faac issue

[Frank Griffin]

On 10/02/2012 07:50 AM, Wolfgang Bornath wrote:
>
> We have software in 4 different flavors:
> 1. free software (FOSS), most of them distributed under any of the GPL versions
> 2. non-free software, meaning they can not distributed under such
> licenses as the GPL. Mostly it's closed source software (like firmware
> for devices like graphic cards or some wifi chips)
> 3. tainted software, this is cost-free but patented software. In
> countries which obey software patents (like USA) it is not allowed to
> be distributed.
> 4. then there is software which is non-free AND tainted.
>
> Of course this special point #4 is a bit bureaucratic. As "tainted"
> (aka patented) is the stronger restriction than non-free we should
> also place faac into "tainted" as it matches the sentence from the
> MGA1 notes anyway (as quoted in Christian's mail).
>
> In any way I agree that this more or less academical dispute about
> faac should not make it impossible to make faac available.
>
That's my point.  I get that the official definition says that tainted 
stuff should be FOSS.  I just don't understand WHY that restriction is 
of interest to anybody.