[XviD-devel] Re: License/legal discussions

[Christoph Lampert]

On Sat, 20 Dec 2003, charact3r wrote:
> "[...] If you cannot distribute so as to
> satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
> License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a
> consequence you may not distribute the Program at
> all."

I know that this can be read in different ways: Either, 
you are allowed to distribute until a court stops you 
(maybe being contacted by the patent holder would be enough),
or, the public announcement that a license fee is needed for 
distribution is already obligation enough. 
I don't know what FSF says about this. I know e.g. that 
may Linux distritbutions contain MP3 stuff, but RedHad stopped 
inclusion of those a while ago. 
Jan, have you lawyers told you anything on this? 

Still, the situation is stupid, and a license which essentially demands a
software to be patent free is bad for an application like XviD.
And, I still don't think this is related to commercial/noncommercial. 
This is a general question of redistribution. 

Christoph