What next?

Jeff Spaleta jspaleta at gmail.com
Fri Jun 3 21:18:33 UTC 2005


On 6/3/05, Chris Adams <cmadams at hiwaay.net> wrote:
> I was basing my comments on the current state of freely (legal or not)
> available MP3 decoders.  AFAIK the free decoders are all GPL.  For that
> code to actually be legally distributable in some places (i.e. the US),
> Fraunhofer would have to agree to a royalty-free patent license to the
> copyright holder _and_ to anyone else who distributes such code under
> the terms of the GPL (whether such distribution is commercial or not).
> Otherwise, the code cannot be distributed at all (since a patent license
> requirement conflicts with the terms of the GPL).

The assessment is valid... and materially different than what you
wrote earlier... because this paragraph does not put constraints on
what Fraunhofer is allowed to do with their patents.

-jef




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