Re: [PATCH] gnu: Add rhythmbox.

[David Hashe]

On Mon, Jul 6, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Mark H Weaver <address@hidden> wrote:

David Hashe <address@hidden> writes:

> On Sun, Jul 5, 2015 at 2:24 PM, Amirouche Boubekki
> <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>         I only tried to play mp3 and ogg. Ogg works. I did not try
>         burning audio cds.
>         I will try later today or tomorrow.
>
>
> mp3 support requires gst-plugins-ugly, which includes nonfree and
> patent-encumbered codecs. More information at
> http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/modules/gst-plugins-ugly.html

There are MP3 decoders that are free software.  We should be able to
support this, just like Debian does.  What about the gst-libav package?

> As a side note, it appears that we do package some patent-encumbered
> software, such as LAME, so I'm not sure what our stance is on software
> patents themselves.

See the section on "Patents" in the GNU FSDG
<https://gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html>:

  It is effectively impossible for free software developers and
  distributors to know whether or not a given piece of software
  infringes any patents: there are too many of them, they vary from
  country to country, they're often worded so as to make it hard to tell
  what they do or don't cover, and it isn't easy to tell which ones are
  valid. Therefore, we don't generally ask free system distributions to
  exclude software because of possible threats from patents. On the
  other hand, we also don't object if a distributor chooses to omit some
  software in order to avoid patent risk.

We can include free software in GNU Guix, even if it faces possible
patent threats in some countries.

      Mark

Thanks for clarifying. Besides patents, my other concern was licensing. Specifically, the page I linked about gst-plugins-ugly includes the following:

    The license on either the plug-ins or the supporting libraries might not be how we'd like.

Rather vague, but a bit worrying. However, you're right that Debian includes it, as do Trisquel and Parabola (both free distributions), so I agree that this is probably something we can include.

Thanks,

David