removing mp3 code

[Igor Izyumin]

On Saturday 31 August 2002 02:02 pm, Shachar Shemesh wrote:
> Eric Pouech wrote:
> >my point is:
> >- a company X has an audio player for Win32
> >- company X ports its app to Wine using the wine source, and it's mp3
> >player and makes a closed package of it
> >- it'll have to pay for the license
> >so I think this has to be documented somehow
> >
> >A+
>
> Isn't it always the case with Open Source software that, when you want
> to repackage a piece of code, patent licensing requirements are yours to
> figure out and comply? Why is this case any different than the Unisys
> LZW patent, when free (bear) implementations were free of charge?

Well, yes, but it should probably be disclosed somewhere in the readme and/or 
the license file.  You don't want people to encounter this after they've 
ported and released stuff, right?  Wine is not legally OBLIGATED to find 
patent dependencies, but I think that developers should make an effort to 
document known/possible patent issues.  It's not that hard, just put a notice 
in the documentation somewhere.

Note: I am not a lawyer, so this is just my opinion and not legal advice.
-- 
-- Igor