Re: [xine-devel] [Rhythmbox-devel] Re: rhythmbox: gstreamer vs xine

[Kenneth Rohde Christiansen <kenneth gnu org>]

> of course there are ways to resolve the patent issue, for example:
> 
> a) go into politics and try to make an end to the whole evil software
>    patenting that nobody (except patent lawyers) has benefits from 
>    anyway
> 
> b) play by the rules and license all necessary patents - from what i've
>    heard, mpeg isn't that expensive so red hat would have to spend a few
>    bucks for each package they sell to the patent holders

Red Hat cannot do that, as the mpg3 playback software is GPL and there
is a patent clause in the GPL that forbids them to license it. If they
want to license it, they have to rewrite the code and license it under
another license then GPL

> c) wait for the patents to expire ;) (...hey, lots of time to stabilize
>    1.0!)

d) Split up libxine into libxine (with plug-ins not containing patents)
and libxine-plugins (containing plug-ins with license problems). Then
let xine tell the user to download libxine-plugins if he tried to play a
format that is not included in libxine but in libxine-plugins.


-- 
Kenneth Rohde Christiansen <kenneth@gnu.org>