Re: [rtcweb] H.261

[Basil Mohamed Gohar <[e-mail]>]

On 11/22/2013 05:01 PM, Adam Roach wrote:
> On 11/22/13 14:22, Daniel-Constantin Mierla wrote:
>> They plan to release the sources under BSD, but who wants to use them
>> directly, they have to deal with mpeg-la. 
> 
> 
> Every time this kind of statement is made without also including "if
> they distribute more than 100,000 copies a year", it's a bald
> misrepresentation of the situation.
> 
> I'm not saying the 100,000-copy exemption is a silver bullet. But it
> sure does cut down the number of people who have to deal with MPEG-LA,
> and completely addresses the "what if I want to have a enterprise disk
> image?" question. And ignoring it to exaggerate your case doesn't do
> anyone any favors.
> 
> /a

Free software projects do not have a reliable mechanism by which to
count their distribution, since it is sent out through many means, not
the least of which can include direct downloads, SCM code checks (e.g.,
Github), GNU/Linux and *BSD distibutions (which can easily exceed
100,000 for the most popular ones), to name a few.

Where does the liability for counting lie in each of these cases?  The
licensing restrictions that MPEG-LA has placed on H.264 is very
free-software unfriendly for any cases where you want rights to be
transitive - which is a key, fundamental aspect of software freedom.

-- 
Libre Video
http://librevideo.org