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Re: [ITP] libmad/libmad0/libmad-devel: A high-quality MPEG audiodecoder
Brian Dessent wrote:
You're correct. The mp3 format/algorithm is patented, and you are
supposed to obtain a license if you ship software that uses it.
<http://www.mp3licensing.com/help/developer.html#5>. It doesn't matter
what the license of the source code is, because patents apply to
algorithms and methods not to specific implementations. This is why a
lot of noncommercial linux distros have to omit mp3-playing capability
from their package list and relegate it to "extras" or "third party
sites." So, no mp3 libs in Cygwin would seem to be the prognosis.
Further, it appears that Red Hat (Fedora) has chosen to avoid these
libraries as well. libmad is available for Mandriva at the Penguin
Liberation Front; it is available for Fedora over at Freshrpms -- both
of which are hosted, er, elsewhere and are not discussed or supported on
official channels.
===
Side note: I often use an old copy of upset to generate setup.ini's for
my locally built packages which I store in a cygwin/release tree on my
private server, and add that URI to my setup.exe's URI list. I once
advocated ("RFD: A modest proposal #2: unsupported"
http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-apps/2003-04/msg00306.html) having an
'unsupported' tree on the official mirrors similar to the existing
'release' tree but that was shot down for good reason. IIRC at some
point in the discussion it was pointed out that the existing
functionality in setup was sufficient to solve the problem I described,
and much more flexible, and did not require official sanction from the
cygwin mirror system.
--
Chuck