Subject: Re: bug#58147: FAAC considered nonfree by Debian and Parabola

From: Mark H Weaver <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2022 18:41:45 -0400

Liliana Marie Prikler <[email-masked]> writes:

> Am Mittwoch, dem 28.09.2022 um 19:12 +0200 schrieb Denis 'GNUtoo'
> Carikli:
>> The path chosen by Parabola (and probably most other FSDG compliant
>> or 100% free distributions) was to make the packages not depend on
>> faac. 
> Assuming one can clearly point out the non-free sources, the Guix way
> would be removing those.  If they can't easily be separated, then yeah,
> it has to go.

The details are documented here:

  <https://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/changelogs//non-free/f/faac/faac_1.30-1_copyright>

Here's the relevant excerpt:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
Files: libfaac/bitstream.*
       libfaac/channels.c
       libfaac/filtbank.c
       libfaac/tns.*
Copyright: © 1996-1997
License: other
 This software module was originally developed in the course of
 development of the MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio standard ISO/IEC 13818-7,
 14496-1,2 and 3. This software module is an implementation of a part of
 one or more MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio tools as specified by the MPEG-2
 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio standard. ISO/IEC gives users of the MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4
 Audio standards free license to this software module or modifications
 thereof for use in hardware or software products claiming conformance
 to the MPEG-2 NBC/ MPEG-4 Audio standards. Those intending to use this
 software module in hardware or software products are advised that this
 use may infringe existing patents. The original developer of this
 software module and his/her company, the subsequent editors and their
 companies, and ISO/IEC have no liability for use of this software
 module or modifications thereof in an implementation. Copyright is not
 released for non MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio conforming products. The
 original developer retains full right to use the code for his/her own
 purpose, assign or donate the code to a third party and to inhibit
 third party from using the code for non MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio
 conforming products. This copyright notice must be included in all
 copies or derivative works.
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

I also confirmed by looking at the indicated source files in the result
of "guix build -S faac".  Not only do these copying permission notices
fail to grant the freedoms required by the free software definition, but
they explicitly say: "The original developer retains full right [...] to
inhibit third party from using the code for non MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio
conforming products."  That clearly contradicts freedom 0.

Based on the file names, I very much doubt that this library works at
all without the nonfree source files.  Therefore, we must remove the
'faac' package from Guix.

      Thanks,
        Mark

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