Are libav and x264 DFSG-free now?

[Reinhard Tartler]

On Sa, Aug 06, 2011 at 14:41:58 (CEST), Eugen Dedu wrote:

> Hi,
>
> First, a minor incoherence: on
> http://packages.qa.debian.org/liba/libav.html the maintainer field is
> "Debian multimedia packages maintainers", while on
> http://packages.qa.debian.org/x/x264.html it is "Debian Multimedia
> Maintainers", even if both teams are the same team in fact.

Oh, thanks, I'll update that on the next upload.

> And now to my original question.  I have looked on Internet without
> finding the answer.  I would like to know why libav (ffmpeg) and x264
> are now found in main while before they were not.  Why before they were
> considered DFSG non-free, and now they are considered DFSG-free?  Has
> anything changed in the "patents" they code?  Has DSFG-freeness changed?
> Have ftp-master changed their mind?  More generally, what has changed
> between when they were non-free and now?

I can reaffirm that Debian distributes both libav as well as x264 under
the GPLv2, which is perfectly compliant with the DFSG. As for your
question regarding patents, please a look at the Debian Patent FAQ:

http://www.debian.org/reports/patent-faq

There may or may not be soon a libav-extra package in debian that is
distributed under GPLv3, but that's probably unrelated to your question.

-- 
Gruesse/greetings,
Reinhard Tartler, KeyID 945348A4