David Hashe <david.hashe@dhashe.com> writes:
> On Sun, Jul 5, 2015 at 2:24 PM, Amirouche Boubekki
> <amirouche@hypermove.net> wrote:
>
> I only tried to play mp3 and ogg. Ogg works. I did not try
> burning audio cds.
> I will try later today or tomorrow.
>
>
> mp3 support requires gst-plugins-ugly, which includes nonfree and
> patent-encumbered codecs. More information at
> http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/modules/gst-plugins-ugly.html
There are MP3 decoders that are free software. We should be able to
support this, just like Debian does. What about the gst-libav package?
> As a side note, it appears that we do package some patent-encumbered
> software, such as LAME, so I'm not sure what our stance is on software
> patents themselves.
See the section on "Patents" in the GNU FSDG
<https://gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html>:
It is effectively impossible for free software developers and
distributors to know whether or not a given piece of software
infringes any patents: there are too many of them, they vary from
country to country, they're often worded so as to make it hard to tell
what they do or don't cover, and it isn't easy to tell which ones are
valid. Therefore, we don't generally ask free system distributions to
exclude software because of possible threats from patents. On the
other hand, we also don't object if a distributor chooses to omit some
software in order to avoid patent risk.
We can include free software in GNU Guix, even if it faces possible
patent threats in some countries.
Mark