[Vm-dev] Official VM missing MPEGPlugin

[David T. Lewis]

On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 09:28:20PM +0100, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
>
> On 17.01.2011, at 21:10, David T. Lewis wrote:
> >
> > So - is it OK to include the MPEG plugin as an external plugin in
> > the standard binary VM distributions?
>
> Squeak.org VMs have always included it and nobody ever complained about that. Until someone does I don't see a problem.
>
> AFAIU hardware vendors like OLPC may have to pay royalties if they sell mp3-capable machines.

Fine, we'll assume it is OK until someone says otherwise.


On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 12:28:55PM -0800, John M McIntosh wrote:
> 
> Well the mpeg code is licensed GPL and re-licensed for us as LGPL and Squeak-L 
> 
> However the issue likely is that no-one wants to see if the  Mpeg LA
> guys http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/M2S/Pages/Intro.aspx view
> the code base as an infringement on their patents.  The answer to this
> likely would be yes, as they can pay the lawyers to hash out the actual yes/no.

Thanks John, I think this was the concern that Ian was thinking about.
I guess if any patent attorneys decide to open the discussion, we can
delete the old plugin and be done with it.


> Personally the linux guys should work with the gstreamer plugin, and over on the windows/macintosh side play with the quicktime logic . 
> 
> Although you can in theory install gstreamer on windows, the installation on os-x in non-trival and I doubt anyone who doesn't work with MacPorts is willing to install 
> the massive amount of software needed to support it when the Quicktime logic just works... 
> 
> Therefore I'd suggest end-of-life for the mpeg plugin and work the alternate choices. 

Good advice.

Thanks,
Dave