Saw message [1]. I understand that we need more meat on that bone to say anything specific. That said, is there are chance that we could add libdvdcss and XFS to fedora (libdvdcss is my primary interest)?
Cheers!
--alec
[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/04/msg00006.html
Greetings,
----- Original Message -----
Saw message [1]. I understand that we need more meat on that bone to say anything specific. That said, is there are chance that we could add libdvdcss and XFS to fedora (libdvdcss is my primary interest)?
Debian ships mp3 decoders/encoders as well as ffmpeg/libav. Does Fedora? My point is that just because Debian (or any other distribution) ships something doesn't mean that Fedora will... especially if it is something that patent holders seek royalties for and Red Hat could potentially get sued over.
Of course I'm not a lawyer, I'm just a causal reader of this mailing list so I look forward to seeing the more official answer RSN.
And I assume you meant ZFS rather than XFS, right?
Luckily folks who want those sorts of things can find them in third-party repos that are fairly well supported.
TYL,
* Scott Dowdle:
Greetings,
----- Original Message -----
Saw message [1]. I understand that we need more meat on that bone to say anything specific. That said, is there are chance that we could add libdvdcss and XFS to fedora (libdvdcss is my primary interest)?
Debian ships mp3 decoders/encoders as well as ffmpeg/libav. Does Fedora?
I don't think so.
My point is that just because Debian (or any other distribution) ships something doesn't mean that Fedora will...
There is also the practical issue that unless you have the decoders, CSS support does not buy you much. So it would make sense to distribute libdvdcss along with the decoders, and not as part of Fedora.
On 04/16/2015 01:21 PM, Alec Leamas wrote:
Saw message [1]. I understand that we need more meat on that bone to say anything specific. That said, is there are chance that we could add libdvdcss and XFS to fedora (libdvdcss is my primary interest)?
I doubt it seriously.
libdvdcss is considered copy protection circumvention code in the United States, where the DMCA forbids such things (and there is no exception that Fedora is currently able to leverage). I am unaware of any changes in US law (proposed or coming) that would change this for us.
ZFS is an out of tree kernel module, which we do not permit in Fedora because of the maintenance nightmare they are, but even if we did, we wouldn't permit it because it is licensed in an incompatible way with the parts of the linux kernel it depends on. The stance of Fedora is that building ZFS as a CDDL licensed module does not make it an independent work, it still requires the tight connection with the GPL licensed kernel framework. It does not and cannot stand alone, thus, the combined work (the ZFS kernel module) cannot be distributed by Fedora and be in compliance with both CDDL and GPL simultaneously.
This aspect of the CDDL was intentional by Sun, as was its choice of use for ZFS. All of this pain is fruit of that rotten tree. Oracle could at any point resolve this by relicensing (or dual-licensing) ZFS, but they have not opted to do that for at least 7 years.
*****
Now, this Debian email is very short on details as to what legal grounds they feel that they could include ZFS under. I would be very interested in reading the specifics that they received from the SFLC on this matter, but they're under no obligation to share them.
Also, as I've shared many many times before, our legal decisions are not taken on the grounds of "$FOO distribution does it, we can too". We certainly factor in the status and stances of other distributions when reviewing situations, but we do not jump off bridges simply because others are doing so. Red Hat bears responsibility for Fedora, and Red Hat's financial success makes it a lucrative target for litigation that few other Linux distributions come even close to.
~tom
== Red Hat
-
Alec Leamas -
Florian Weimer -
Scott Dowdle -
Tom Callaway