Legal update

Rahul Sundaram sundaram at fedoraproject.org
Thu Nov 15 20:16:30 UTC 2007


Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:

> Linking to "third party repositories": Legal says that we can link, from
> the Fedora website, to third party repositories, so long as no one has
> made a critical assessment to determine that a patent or patents cover
> the technology in question and no party has actually asserted their
> patents against the technology, we should be okay. Once we are on notice
> of a claim of infringement or are aware of a competent assessment that
> concludes infringement is likely, we would need to take the link down or
> run a serious risk of facing a claim for inducing infringement.  Merely
> linking would be highly unlikely to subject us to a claim of direct
> infringement. I asked about MP3, and it was stated that unless we are
> specifically aware of the MP3 patent holders asserting a claim against
> the technology, we are still okay.

So the real question now that Red Hat Legal is ok with it is whether we 
in the Fedora Project should be doing it?

I think we should link to RPM Fusion (the free part) in the future if 
and when it's up and running from codeina as a alternative to Fluendo 
codecs since that is the reason why I wanted [1] to ask this question 
and why I requested RPM Fusion folks to split the repository into two 
parts. Free (but potentially patent encumbered) and non-free. If we want 
to do this, the exact wording and methodology that would satisfy our 
legal obligations should be discussed too.

Rahul

[1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.redhat.fedora.advisory-board/2717




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