Are libav and x264 DFSG-free now?

[Eugen Dedu]

On 06/08/11 19:43, Reinhard Tartler wrote:
> 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.

I still do not understand.  You say that now they are compliant with 
DFSG.  But my main question is: what has changed between a few years ago 
when those codecs were NOT in main, and now when they ARE in main? 
Shouldn't they have been in main since the beginning then?

-- 
Eugen