From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Leo Famulari Subject: Re: Patent nonsense: zstd Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2016 14:56:18 -0400 Message-ID: <20161105185618.GB11314@jasmine> References: <77c1c207-4f67-957b-5de2-3901b8391644@tobias.gr> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha256; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="1LKvkjL3sHcu1TtY" Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:44249) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1c368g-0003np-Ix for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 05 Nov 2016 14:56:27 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1c368c-0003FX-2R for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 05 Nov 2016 14:56:26 -0400 Received: from out2-smtp.messagingengine.com ([66.111.4.26]:37915) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1c368b-0003F8-VO for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 05 Nov 2016 14:56:22 -0400 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <77c1c207-4f67-957b-5de2-3901b8391644@tobias.gr> List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Guix-devel" To: Tobias Geerinckx-Rice Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org --1LKvkjL3sHcu1TtY Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Sat, Nov 05, 2016 at 06:13:58PM +0100, Tobias Geerinckx-Rice wrote: > I've had a package for the =E2=80=98zstd=E2=80=99 compressor lying about = for quite some > time =E2=80=94 since before its weird appropriation by Facebook Inc. as a= PR > tool. Apart from that, it's nice. It's fast. Why not upstream it. >=20 > While updating and cleaning it up for submission, I noticed a =E2=80=98PA= TENTS=E2=80=99 > file[0] that sounds vaguely threatening, or at least tries to do. IANAL > enough to tell. >=20 > Any opinions on its meaningfulness? Does it affect the (BSD-3) licence > at all? Does zstd still belong in Guix? My 2=C2=A2 are quoted from the GNU Free System Distribution Guidelines [0], which Guix does follow: ------ Patents 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. ------ But like I said, my opinion on this subject is only worth 2=C2=A2 ;) Also see the statement by the maintainer / author Yann Collet: https://github.com/facebook/zstd/issues/335#issuecomment-245011724 [0] https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.en.html --1LKvkjL3sHcu1TtY Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIcBAEBCAAGBQJYHitSAAoJECZG+jC6yn8IjGAP/RB7dGgQD+YmLwGIyY2sZW7t y7vyTjNTN35adbpIPuZSEGKv2xwxDic681jNNrtslYVqmG8d+XcaEWFeN/OqffHB 8uoG2qAn8vbJj0DqBxmFjfnpHChvHvju0sbBOigB9tBD7hVgDboQlGRbpEj0IcDo JExjj41R324rB/KdWlyKaMFEPL05v8MM1+yfXZjOCjIO9vOkk/gc86nAlbCksOMi yutgaR2fdPWwxKqAsTXC2NpC44bpesZgA967Gl/vTqgAliDlGqxRbxUTyZwRZQQx +W7af3AdpLjny9qt0BNf1cT4QA4SxQm/O2E9HLzs3TlgIc2fjZnQxJX8fleiATkT r0Wu0vHwMc4z7LfwHudWdJgTsJSDbEqYNQvx+SJI5kTCY/feATmFAXYj13PbQUt4 z20NwiWK4QvyJzChu/P2TwudYpPMeI/RG3FTO40j3elVRWfL9+AwnYGXzgUo6iR0 X6OlTb+uT5uLANiszxPJyoGipH+4hGi9RgDHcFXI8D9/H7CLPZiaIQQibOIQWn+n e6rRGA7kZVhOtJDF97I40NgTM6YGMBItRH6LPC2nCCaC6dvwuZSRKeq3ZfgcQftb Ck/iAASc+BK6r9K1XJbbssTrb2yNugq8XahF0Sx6FV9S5eXyjCo4bRc0KYLzn/CZ MmAiqKKBUom4heCneBju =YpLq -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --1LKvkjL3sHcu1TtY--