[gst-devel] Can a MPEG-1 with Audio Layers 1&2 plugin be in plugins-good (patentwise)?

[David Schleef]

On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 08:51:20PM -0700, jjcogliati-gstreamer at yahoo.com wrote:
> So my questions for this list are:
> 1. Could a MPEG-1 video decoder that was acceptably licensed and of
> sufficient quality be added to the gstreamer good plugins?

Not now, because the relevant patents aren't expired.  The point of
-good isn't to pack as much stuff into it as possible -- it's for
stuff that distributors don't have to think twice about.  MPEG-1
video is not at that point yet.  If the explanation why something
can go into -good takes more than about one sentence, it's probably
not OK.

> 2. Could a MPEG-1 audio layer 2 decoder that was acceptably licensed
> and of sufficient quality be added to the gstreamer good plugins?

MPEG-1 audio layer 2 has never been patent encumbered, encoding or
decoding.  There just isn't a good library that has been wrapped.

> 3. If the answer to either of the above is no, what would prevent that
> from occurring?  

Er, uh, code just doesn't just magically appear out of thin air.  :)



dave...