[H-GEN] The legal mess that is multimedia codecs for open source distros.

[David Seikel]

As some of you know, I do some contract work for Terra Soft Solutions
(TSS), who make Yellow Dog Linux (YDL).  They like to make use of the
untapped social skills I didn't know I had.  One of my current tasks is
to sort out the legal mess that is multimedia codecs for open source
distro companies.  TSS wants YDL to play popular multimedia stuff like
MP3, DVD, WMV, and Flash out of the box.  TSS is a small USA company, so
software patents and lots of exorbitant license fees are making this
tricky.

Not being able to play MP3s, DVDs, and web videos out of the box makes
Linux distros look pathetic.  Users don't understand about the legal
issues and think it is a technical limitation of Linux.  Linux is quite
capable of playing these things, it's the "out of the box" legal issues
that stops it from happening.  So this is not just TSS's problem, I'm
looking for an industry wide solution.

aj may want to respond to this as the head honcho of arguably the
largest non commercial distro in the world.  How does Debian handle
this?  Please explain the philosophy behind your solution.  Or just
tell me to piss off.  B-)

What we really need is a set of licensed open source multimedia
libraries that all open source distros (even non Linux ones) can use.
We have the open source libraries already.  FFmpeg for instance is used
by most software as a source of these codecs, and it covers most of
what we need, other libraries can fill in the gaps.  We need to get the
distro companies together to chip in and pay for licensing these
libraries as a group.  We need to cooperate to form a large enough group
that we might be able to swing licensing source code instead of
binaries.

One issue is that licenses are likely to only cover particular binaries.
A lot of the debate seems to be centred around closed binary blobs as a
non solution, but it really should be about licensing the open source
solutions that we already have.  It's a legal issue, not a technical
one.  The technical issues are all solved, TSS (and other distro
companies) just aren't allowed to distribute them.  On the other hand,
licensed open source binaries are likely to be for x86, and YDL is
strictly for Power based CPUs (PPC, CELL).  There are other non x86
machines people may want to install a pre packaged distro on and not
have to worry about installing their own multimedia stuff with no
support from the distro company.  Licensing the source code is the key.

Eric S. Raymond and Rob Landley wrote this paper which neatly sums up
the situation and also details my preferred solution -

http://catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/world-domination-201.html

You can skip the bit at the beginning about world domination and go
straight to the bit about multimedia codecs.  My preferred solution is
the "Codex" that they describe, a collection of licensed codecs on a CD
that plugs neatly into every distro and is available for a nominal fee
that covers the licensing fees.

As the paper says, Linspire had a head start on creating this "Codex",
so my approach was to contact Eric S. Raymond and Rob Landley to and
figure out how I was gonna approach Linspire.  At first I was working
with Rob Landley (with Eric S. Raymond in the loop) conspiring on how
best to approach Linspire to get TSS in on their version of the
"Codex".  Then this happened - 

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/06-14-2007/0004608008&EDATE=

Which makes things murky when you consider this -

http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS4862361523.html

and other such things.  So I'm rethinking my approach, hoping to come up
with a Plan B when corporate mind share games get in the way of Plan A.

What are your thoughts?


Things that are likely to come up in this discussion -

"Just distribute a script to download and install legally
dodgy libraries, or point users at a web page that describes how to
install this stuff." - Not really the out of the box experience the
boss wants, and it's still legally dubious to do these things according
to USA law.  The lawyers tell me that this falls under the category of
conspiracy to work around copy protection devices or some such
nonsense.  The boss doesn't want to take that risk.

"What about Fluendo?" - Fluendo makes licensed plugins for GStreamer,
which leaves non GStreamer based software out of the loop.  Sure they
could be part of the solution, but they are not the complete solution.
Note that GStreamer can make use of FFmpeg codecs.

"FFmpeg is legally dubious." - Well, yes, solving that sort of thing is
what this is all about.  Note that while I'm not pushing for FFmpeg as
the one true collection of codecs, my research found that most
multimedia software can make use of FFmpeg codecs.  This made it a nice
choice if only one had to be chosen.  Which is why I use it as an
example.

"YDL/Debian/Linspire sucks." - Try to avoid turning this into a distro
flame fest.

"Ubuntu can do it." - The Ubuntu CEO has more money and higher priced
lawyers than TSS.

"Eric S. Raymond is a prick/god." - Many people have strong feelings
about Eric and some of his more controversial published thoughts.
This does not invalidate the document I linked to above or my
argument.  In this case, I agree with Eric.

"aj is a prick/god." - Let's just stick to the topic at hand.

"onefang you are an ignorant luser with less social skills than a fresh
dog turd." - So educate me already.  B-)
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