Ubuntu
opal package

iLBC audio codec is not available in Ekiga

Bug #64799 reported by Jonathon Conte
14
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
ekiga (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned
opal (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: ekiga

I'm running Ubuntu Edgy Eft beta and have version 2.0.3-0ubuntu1 of Ekiga installed. The iLBC audio codec is missing from Ekiga's list of available audio codecs.

Revision history for this message
Andrew Jorgensen (ajorg) wrote :

I noticed this last night. I can imagine that there might have been a license issue or something but I can't seem to find any mention of why this was removed.

Changed in ekiga:
status: Unconfirmed → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Andrew Jorgensen (ajorg) wrote :

iLBC was removed from libopal allegedly due to license problems. Having read the license I don't think I agree. Dropping this code appears to have been a mistake. debian/copyright cites the copyright as follows:

iLBC Speech Coder ANSI-C Source Code
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).
All Rights Reserved.

It's the "All Rights Reserved" statement that got it thrown out. This is the copyright statement from the code listing in RFC 3951 (the reference implementation) but Global IP Sound offers a license for the code which does allow distribution, modification, and inclusion in other products. It is available here <http://www.ilbcfreeware.org/documentation/gips_iLBClicense.pdf>. See also <http://www.ilbcfreeware.org/>.

iLBC is an excellent codec for VoIP. I am not a lawyer but from what I read in the license it appears that if the license is included along-side the source and in a place where a user is likely to find it if they try to look for the license then it is perfectly legal to distribute.

Please review and put iLBC back in (along with a copy of it's license). It's one of the few widely-used codec's that's really resilient to lost packets.

Revision history for this message
Lars Ljung (larslj) wrote :

This has been discussed on debian-legal http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/10/msg00000.html

Revision history for this message
Andrew Jorgensen (ajorg) wrote :

One of the arguments given in that discussion was that the clause that states that the payload format may not change makes the license non-free. I absolutely disagree (though that might just mean that the DFSG is too strict, but more likely this person's interpretation of it is too strict). It's perfectly reasonable to require that the code maintain interoperability.

Revision history for this message
Stephen Cook (siti) wrote :

I am marking it as rejected because if you read here:
http://www.ilbcfreeware.org/documentation/gips_iLBClicense.pdf

"You must register this license with GIPS prior to any commercial Deployment."

Just this alone means it should not be included.

Changed in opal:
status: Confirmed → Rejected
Stephen Cook (siti)
Changed in ekiga:
status: Unconfirmed → Rejected
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