[ILUG] No Software Patents in Europe?

[Niall Walsh]

Tell videolan about the lack of software patents in Europe.  From 
www.videolan.org (French based free project) regarding their latest release:

"NOTE: This release doesn't include DTS audio decoding support. DTS Inc. 
claims that distributing this software with DTS decoding capabilities is a 
violation of their patent EP 864 146. At DTS Inc. request, we decided, as a 
precautionary measure, to provisionally suspend the distribution of VLC with 
DTS decoding capabilities while reviewing DTS Inc. claim. This is not an 
acknowledgement of the validity of the claim."

God help them, they also include support for a lot of other stuff which could 
see similar accusations, from mp3 to libdvdcss!  Also this particular code 
libdca (formerly libdts) has spread to ffmpeg and hence mplayer amongst 
others, I wonder if they will all remove it and/or see similar threats.

I suppose it was only a matter of time before videolan was attacked in some 
way (perhaps they have already withstood some attacks), but it pains me to 
see them capitulating so far as to remove decoding support for a format 
thanks to a patent threat.   I suppose it gives a further demonstration of 
the threat to Free Software.

Niall Walsh