Fluendo MP3 GStreamer Plugin in Main for Dapper?

[Evandro Fernandes Giovanini]

Em Sex, 2005-12-30 às 14:49 +1100, Jeff Waugh escreveu:
> <quote who="John Nilsson">
> 
> > The source is fine and free and what ever. The binary provided by fluendo
> > isn't. I thought the issue was about distributing the fluendo binary.
> 
> The binary provided *by Fluendo* is free-as-in-beer. The binary that *we'd*
> build and distribute (under contract with Fluendo) would be free-as-in-beer.
> The source is free-as-in-speech in both cases (same source). We already have
> various free-as-in-beer things in restricted and multiverse. There are many
> subtleties involved here. :-)
> 

The binary provided by Fluendo is not-free-as-in-speech. As you said
Ubuntu already distributes proprietary software but there are a few
differences in this case.

I think the worst problem is that to distribute the plugin a contract
with Fluendo is needed. Canonical might sign that contract, but there
are thousands of other distributors of Ubuntu; what about them? If the
Fluendo plugin is in the default Ubuntu CD then they'll either have to
sign a contract with Fluendo or give up distributing Ubuntu.

IANAL, but Fluendo uses the word "distribution" without defining what
that is. For example, if Canonical ships me a CD then they're
distributing "Ubuntu Linux" to me. If I share one of these CD's with
friends, then *I* am distributing "Ubuntu Linux", not Canonical. And of
course, in this case I would have to sign a contract with Fluendo, as
would the thousands of people happily sharing with their friends the
CD's they got in the mail. 

Cheers,
Evandro