[Mageia-dev] [RFC] Moving various packages/codecs to tainted

[Dan Fandrich]

On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 09:23:20PM -0500, David Walser wrote:
> andre999 wrote:
> > However I do agree that we should put encoders that seem to be covered 
> > by valid patents in some countries in "tainted".
> 
> If we really want a hard and fast rule, I agree that this makes the most sense.

If you look hard enough, just about any significant software is probably
violating a software patent in some country in the world (see
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/dangers/linux.html).  Any criteria
used to determine "tainted" or not has to be more concrete than "seems" to
be covered by valid patents.  Under that criteria, the Linux kernel would
have to go into tainted since it violates patents by Microsoft, Bedrock
Computer Technologies, McDonnell Douglas, etc.

>>> Dan