Re: Some topics

[Dan Mueth <d-mueth uchicago edu>]

On 4 Oct 2000, Tommaso Bianchi wrote:

> Hello to everyone, 
> 
> I want to discuss some topics with you in order to keep my mind clear
> from the beginning. I really need some feedback.  
> 
> 1. Sound license: legal considerations.
> Do sounds need a license,like GPL? Can I download a "free" sound file
> from the Net and include it into Gnome without being cited? 

I think they really need to be both copyrighted and licensed.  In fact, if
we don't know who the copyright belongs to, then you can't really trust
the license IMO.  With sounds being passed around the net, one generally
doesn't know either of these accurately.  This is why I'd like to see the
copyright and license info as metadata inside the sound file if possible -
so it doesn't get lost.  This would generally have to be stored as a
"comment".  I'm not sure which audio formats support comments
though.  Does anybody know?

We could use the Open Content License (http://www.opencontent.org/).  This
is an "open source" type license instead of a "free" license, but I think
it is the best option available.  The "free" licenses like the GPL and the
GFDL are not really appropriate for sound/artwork.

Note that gnome-audio and gnome-audio-extras are currently not
licensed.  This really needs to be fixed since it means it is illegal for
anybody except the copyright holder to copy or distribute
them.   (Elliot?)

> 2. Definitions
> 	a. How define a sound collection: soundtheme? soundset(MacOS)
> soundpack?

I like "sound theme" (or "soundtheme").

> 	b. Sound format: *.au? *.wav?

They both seem to work with gnomecc and esd.  Are there technical reasons
to prefer one over the other?

> 3. Sound types
> 	What type of sound shall we include into a soundtheme
> 	-FX?
> 	-sounds from daily life (for example telephone ringing)?
> 	-voices associated  the dialogs?
> 	-from movies, TV or Radio? 

I think any of these would be fine except ones which have potential
copyright violations (movies, tv, and radio).  Does anybody know how "fair
use" applies to recorded sounds?  Is it legal to take a 3 second clip of
sound out of a movie and distribute it?  My guess is that it isn't, but I
don't know for sure.

> 4. Sound dimension
> 	Is there
> 	-a limit of X MB for soundtheme?
> 	-a limit of X Kb for each sound?

In general, I would say "no".  However, when it comes to packaging things
this may be different.  For example, we could have:

1) gnome-audio - this just has the default GNOME sound theme

2) gnome-audio-themes - this has a small set(5?) of alternate GNOME sound
 themes which have a reasonable size limit so that a person could download
it over a modem. Presumably distributions will choose to ship this.

3) gnome-audio-themes-extra - this is where any obscenely large themes
or any themes which are not considered to be in the "best 5 themes" group
go.  Distributions may not want to ship this due to its large size or the
lack of a real need for more than 6 themes for most people.  People with
lots of bandwidth who like to play with their systems will enjoy these.

Alternately, we could choose to merge (1) and (2) into gnome-audio and
then call (3) gnome-audio-themes.  Either way, we will probably put a size
limit on a theme to be considered as a standard theme which get
shipped.  Any idea what this size should be?  gnome-audio is 660kB in RPM
form and it doesn't even have window manager events.

Dan