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

[Jamie Strandboge]

I took some time to look at this and the following files:
aenc/common.c
aenc/encode.c
aenc/musicin.c
aenc/psy.c
aenc/encoder.h
aenc/common.h
aenc/tonal.c

have this statement:
"NOT for public distribution until verified and approved by the MPEG/audio committee."

I agree that this falls under the MSSG (http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/mpeg-
pointers-and-resources/). However, this software was decided long ago
(Warty) that it was redistributable in the archive. There is nothing in
the source that I can find that would make it non-free or non-DFSG, so I
don't see why this should remain in multiverse. I do however feel that
the copyright is severely lacking and will adjust it for DEP-5 and
upload.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/935791

Title:
  mjpegtools is on multiverse even though it's actually free

Status in “mjpegtools” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  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.

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