Re: Gnash Considered Non-Free by Gobuntu?

[DC Parris]

Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:

> 
> DC Parris <dcparris@carolina.rr.com> writes:
>> Is he assuming patent infringement?
> 
> I don't know what he's assuming :)
> 
>>  Is it a good idea to
>> consider 'possible' or 'allegedly' infringing code to be 'non-Free'
>> without some sort of proof positive?
> 
> No.
> 
>> I find the Mono submission to be slightly less puzzling,
> 
> I agree.  The Mono situation is different because Microsoft have claimed
> they have relevent patents and have also declared themselves as an enemy
> of free software.
> 
> (And we can't trust the company that developes Mono to protect the free
> software community against Microsoft.)
> 
>> and don't know
>> enough about the Samba project to comment on how well they vet their
>> code.
> 
> The Samba folks are very aware of legal issues.  They've been working with
> FSFE (where I work) on the EU anti-trust case, and this requires a lot of
> legal care.
> 
>> On the other hand, I believe Gnash is an official GNU project, and am
>> assuming that GNU has implemented the same checks it normally does.
> 
> The GNU project is also very strict about legal issues.  For example,
> GNU's cryptographic software, such as GnuPG and GnuTLS, is developed
> outside of the USA.
> 
> Similarly with Gnash, the developer (Rob Savoye)'s company will only hires
> people in the USA if they have never installed or used Adobes flash player
> (which means, IIRC, they mostly hire Europeans instead).  IIRC, they also
> don't do any reverse engineering.  The developers (anywhere in the world)
> don't have Adobe's software installed, they just examine flash files.
> 
> So I think Gnash is quite safe.
> 

I just received response from the Ubuntu folks.  They have not declared
these packages to be non-Free, only to open a discussion about them.  And
thanks for your input on Samba.  I would assume they were playing safe, but
you know what happens when we assume. ;-)

Cheers,
Don
-- 
DCP