[haiku-development] Re: ffmpeg licensing
- From: Urias McCullough <umccullough@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2012 13:57:33 -0700
On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 10:53 AM, Ryan Leavengood <leavengood@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> To me this applies to ffmpeg and freetype. I think we should just turn
> on the subpixel rendering in freetype and ship it, instead of jumping
> through hoops just because of the United States and its horrible
> patent system.
Let's try not to turn this into a large "opinion" thread (wrong
mailing list for that).
There is some merit to ignoring the possible patent threats until
they've actually been tested in court. As it stands, the Haiku project
doesn't really benefit financially by using potentially-patented code,
so we're probably not in any danger.
Unlike copyrights, patents are an extremely gray and fuzzy area of
intellectual property law. At the very least, if there was any legal
issue that affected Haiku directly, it would probably be excellent PR
for the project anyhow. One might say it would be a "good problem to
have", as it would demonstrate that Haiku has become an actual threat
to someone who cares.
> Because the reality is as much as we may hate it, this corrupt system
> won't be changing overnight. We should just be glad that (so far) the
> EU and most other countries haven't followed suit.
It's really becoming a world-wide problem, everyone should be on alert
and voicing their opinions to their government representatives :)
- Urias
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