[Mageia-dev] rehashing the faac issue

[PhilippeDidier]

Wolfgang Bornath a écrit :
> 2012/10/2 Johnny A. Solbu <cooker at solbu.net>:
>> Not according to official mageia documentation and policy it doesn't.
>>
>> https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Mageia_2_Release_Notes#The_Mageia_online_repositories
>> That page states that there is No nonfree software in tainted.
>>
>> https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Mirrors_policy#tainted
>> Current policy states that nonfree packages are Not allowed in tainted. That includes patented nonfree packages.
>>
>> Then we also need to change current guidelines as to what goes in tainted.
> 
> This is exactly why we are discussing it here ! :)
> These guidelines were set when this special case (faac) did not come
> to mind. When it did, this discussion started.
> 
To sumarize : ;)

1) Core repo = opensource and free softwares without any patent problem
in any country : OK for FOSS zealous users
opensource licences =
    Academic Free License 3.0 (AFL-3.0)
    Affero GNU Public License: See "GNU Affero General Public License
3.0 (AGPL-3.0)"
    Adaptive Public License (APL-1.0)
    Apache License 2.0 (Apache-2.0)
    Apple Public Source License (APSL-2.0)
    Artistic license 2.0 (Artistic-2.0)
    Attribution Assurance Licenses (AAL)
    BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License (BSD-3-Clause)
    BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" or "FreeBSD" License (BSD-2-Clause)
    Boost Software License (BSL-1.0)
    Computer Associates Trusted Open Source License 1.1 (CATOSL-1.1)
    Common Development and Distribution License 1.0 (CDDL-1.0)
    Common Public Attribution License 1.0 (CPAL-1.0)
    CUA Office Public License Version 1.0 (CUA-OPL-1.0)
    EU DataGrid Software License (EUDatagrid)
    Eclipse Public License 1.0 (EPL-1.0)
    Educational Community License, Version 2.0 (ECL-2.0)
    Eiffel Forum License V2.0 (EFL-2.0)
    Entessa Public License (Entessa)
    European Union Public License, Version 1.1 (EUPL-1.1) (links to
every language's version on their site)
    Fair License (FAIR)
    Frameworx License (Frameworx-1.0)
    GNU Affero General Public License v3 (AGPL-3.0)
    GNU General Public License version 2.0 (GPL-2.0)
    GNU General Public License version 3.0 (GPL-3.0)
    GNU Library or "Lesser" General Public License version 2.1 (LGPL-2.1)
    GNU Library or "Lesser" General Public License version 3.0 (LGPL-3.0)
    Historical Permission Notice and Disclaimer (HPND)
    IBM Public License 1.0 (IPL-1.0)
    IPA Font License (IPA)
    ISC License (ISC)
    LaTeX Project Public License 1.3c (LPPL-1.3c)
    Lucent Public License Version 1.02 (LPL-1.02)
    MirOS Licence (MirOS)
    Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL)
    Microsoft Reciprocal License (Ms-RL)
    MIT license (MIT)
    Motosoto License (Motosoto)
    Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL-2.0)
    Multics License (Multics)
    NASA Open Source Agreement 1.3 (NASA 1.3)
    NTP License (NTP)
    Naumen Public License (Naumen)
    Nethack General Public License (NGPL)
    Nokia Open Source License (Nokia)
    Non-Profit Open Software License 3.0 (NPOSL-3.0)
    OCLC Research Public License 2.0 (OCLC-2.0)
    Open Font License 1.1 (OFL 1.1)
    Open Group Test Suite License (OGTSL)
    Open Software License 3.0 (OSL-3.0)
    PHP License 3.0 (PHP-3.0)
    The PostgreSQL License (PostgreSQL)
    Python License (Python-2.0) (overall Python license)
    CNRI Python license (CNRI-Python) (CNRI portion of Python License)
    Q Public License (QPL-1.0)
    RealNetworks Public Source License V1.0 (RPSL-1.0)
    Reciprocal Public License 1.5 (RPL-1.5)
    Ricoh Source Code Public License (RSCPL)
    Simple Public License 2.0 (SimPL-2.0)
    Sleepycat License (Sleepycat)
    Sun Public License 1.0 (SPL-1.0)
    Sybase Open Watcom Public License 1.0 (Watcom-1.0)
    University of Illinois/NCSA Open Source License (NCSA)
    Vovida Software License v. 1.0 (VSL-1.0)
    W3C License (W3C)
    wxWindows Library License (WXwindows)
    X.Net License (Xnet)
    Zope Public License 2.0 (ZPL-2.0)
    zlib/libpng license (Zlib)

And perhaps some other forgotten licenses



2) Non free repo = freedom of use, but proprietary and not opensource
stuff (no good for FOSS zealous users)
 they bring no patent problem in any country : they can be distributed
without restriction...
that means mainly graphics drivers for Nvidia, ATI, firmwares for wifi-
cheapsets...
(Some prefer to use nouveau instead of nvidia drivers... and some will
have to wait until a cheapset with opensource firmware appears, but most
of users want to install and use GNU Linux on their actual computer
thanks to non-free repo)

Non free repo contains too :
some utilities to download some non opensource softwares from the
proprietary web site (Adobe-flash, Skype) that can't be distributed .
FOSS zealous wouldn't use this no more... Ordinary user may need these
softwares



3) tainted repo = opensource and free softwares with  patent problem in
some countries : quite OK for FOSS addicts (nevertheless some of them
wouldn't even use an opensource software to read a patented format such
as mp3 : they prefer ogg and ask to boycott mp3... or aac)




FAAC problem : it's indeed and absolutely tainted because of patent
problem (like FAAD which allows to read aac files and is provided in
tainted repo, same as lame to encode mp3 and gstreamer-plugin-ugly to
decode mp3 )
but : it's not entirely opensource because it is based on a ISO
reference code which of course is not opensource .... this standard was
developed by several companies which cooperated and contributed to
create it (AT T, Dolby, Fraunhofer, Nokia ...)

It's not good for FOSS addicts !!!!

There were endless discussions about it (like zoologists about platypus
ie ornythorynchus
is it a mammalian yes the female milk the young... but it lays eggs like
a bird or a reptile... but it is venomous like a reptile or an
arthropode ... but it has a beak like a duck! is it a hoax ? where must
it be classified ?)



Not lots of possibilities to create aac or mp4 files :
- Neroaacenc proprietary (non-free and non distributable)
- libavcodec not so good
- vo-aacenc ( for androïd, seems to have the same ISO basis as faac !!!)
- fdk-aac (copyleft from Fraunhofer... who wrote the ISO standard !!!!)
this last one is too young to have been used by other programs

Nowadays Cinerella, Handbrake need FAAC and can't be provided by Mageia!
Gstreamer, FFMPEG, VLC, avidemux, mencoder, CDex ... might be built with
FAAC and then allow to create mp4 or aac files (that are quite a
standard on the web) they were built this way in PLF... they are not
provided built this way by Mageia.

If the problem is really not soluble inside Mageia we can ask for a
third party repo (guys from Blogdrake already provide FAAC, handbrake
and cinerella... may we ask them to rebuild upon FAAC some Mageia's rpms
? the spec files are ready for this!)




Last thoughts :

Anyway :
Some other free softwares are based on ISO references (we can even find
them in the Core repo !)
Is there anybody to complain to have to use  a unicode based or ISO
8859-* based web-browser, or text-writer ?... is it still opensource ?
Or must we use a FOSS standard that only FOSS users may understand ?