[mythtv-users] Trademark Issue with "Packages - MythTV Official Wiki" and the repository is questionable for Debian users

[Michael T. Dean]

On 11/05/2014 09:49 PM, Chuck Peters wrote:
> Hi,
>
> https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Packages shows Debian packages are available
> for MythTV.  However the packages are not officially part of Debian [1],
> and the site which was advertised as Debian Multimedia is known to break
> libraries for Debian users [2].
>
> The MythTV packages page shows the Debian logo and definitely left me
> with the impression that it was officially part of Debian. It was a
> trademark violation and the site owner was asked by Debian's project
> leader Stefano Zacchiroli in 2012 to change the domain name.  I would
> like to see it corrected on MythTV's site. [3]
>
> 1. http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-multimedia-maintainers/2012-May/026678.html
> 2. http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-multimedia-maintainers/2012-April/025867.html
> 3. https://www.debian.org/trademark
> When You Can Use the Debian Trademarks Without Asking Permission
>    1. You can use Debian trademarks to make true factual statements about Debian or communicate compatibility with your product truthfully.

I updated the page, changing the text of the site name from the old 
"Debian Multimedia" to the new "deb-multimedia" that the site owner 
used, and added the words "unofficial packages" so that it's clear that 
they're not blessed by systemd, er, I mean Debian.  I left the logo in 
place because that logo indicates that the packages are created for 
Debian--not to mention the fact that http://deb-multimedia.org/ still 
uses the Debian logo (see the site icon - 
http://deb-multimedia.org/favicon.ico ).

> I have more questions like Why isn't MythTV in the
> official Debian archives yet

AIUI, originally MythTV could not be an official Debian package because 
MythTV requires ffmpeg, including requiring certain parts of ffmpeg 
(including CODECs) that may be in violation of patents and/or copyrights 
in some parts of the world, meaning that a MythTV package would be in 
violation of Debian's ethos.  Now that Debian seems to have changed 
their view on ethics, inclusion of MythTV should be no more difficult 
than inclusion of MPlayer or xine.  (That said, my interpretation of the 
official Debian Social Contract and the Debian Free Software Guidelines 
and the Debian Position on Software Patents is that none of them should 
be allowed to be officially hosted in the Debian repository, even in the 
non-free area.  IMHO, if they can't host libdvdcss--due to 
patent/licensing violation--they shouldn't be able to host any software 
that decodes MP3 and MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 and ..., but hey, I'm no lawyer.)

Mike