Technical board discussion of patent-encumbered media codecs in main

[Benj. Mako Hill]

We've sort of inherited Debian's "head in the sand" approach to media
codecs. I'm not thrilled with this but the alternatives are all a huge
mess and I haven't seen practical or principled reasons that are
compelling enough to make me want to do deal with it.

<quote who="Matt Zimmerman" date="Wed, Mar 07, 2007 at 10:42:52AM -0800">
> I agree that it would be useful to blacklist packages from ship;
> something like this happened in one of the early releases.

I don't see any reason not to do this and to try to at least be
consistent with it comes to particular algorithms and formats. I think
some of the inconsistency is just mistakes or historical leftovers.

> xmms is in main for (as far as I am concerned) historical reasons, and
> should be moved to universe without much of a fuss.

That sounds right to me.

Regards,
Mako


-- 
Benjamin Mako Hill
mako at ubuntu.com
http://mako.cc/

Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so
far as society is free to use the results. --RMS