Restricted formats and legality

[Alan McKinnon]

On Thursday 23 March 2006 18:20, Sarunas Burdulis wrote:
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RestrictedFormats says:
> > Some of the packages listed here may be illegal in your country.
> > This page is not legal advice.
>
> Given a package and a country, where does one start in finding out
> whether it's legal or not?...
>
> For example gstreamer0.8-mad/gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly and USA?

Tricky question. Correct answer: It depends.

The central problem is the question of software patents. If your 
country allows them, then it's safe to assume that any restricted 
package is problematic, if not illegal.

There may be other reasons why a certain package is restricted, but 
patents are the majority of causes. Sometimes you have to analyze a 
package on it's own merits to find out what the problem is.

I don't know of any database/site that lays this out in a searchable 
form, perhaps someone else here knows of such a thing.

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five