[Bug 935791] [NEW] mjpegtools is on multiverse even though it's actually free

[Launchpad Bug Tracker]

You have been subscribed to a public bug by Timo Jyrinki (timo-jyrinki):

I did tried to do a thorough digging around to find out what the issues
were behind this package. Turns out there is a still outstanding "Needs
Packaging" bug on Debian for this, at http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-
bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=515850 .

The package seems to have been rejected once, last year, with the
rejection statement here: http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-
multimedia-maintainers/2011-July/020408.html .

The reasons for rejection were that the package depends on libquicktime, which is not in Debian anymore, and the fact that the copyright file didn't actually describe the copyright situation very well; however, the packager was encouraged to fix those issues and try again, though there doesn't seem to have been any movement on that front. Crucially, it seems that the problematic files with the copyright header stating 
  NOT for public distribution until verified and approved by
  the MPEG/audio committee.
can be assumed to be under a statement   http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/mpeg-pointers-and-resources/ implies that MSSG
  software is considered "public-domain" nowadays. This would make the package redistributable under the GPL2+, and fit for universe, not multiverse. 

It seems the package is also considered free by Fedora, because even though it cannot ship in Fedora proper because of patent issues, it is in the *Free* component of RPMFusion, which follows the same copyright policies as Fedora itself (otherwise it goes into non-free): see here http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/releases/16/Everything/i386/os/repoview/mjpegtools.html .
I tried to find the discussion about the copyright issues on their bugzilla, but I wasn't able to do so. If anyone is able to find its wherabouts, it would be helpful to post it here so we can see their reasoning.

In short, I think this package should be moved to universe, as should
any packages which eventually might depend on this one.

** Affects: mjpegtools (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: Confirmed

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mjpegtools is on multiverse even though it's actually free
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/935791
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