On Tue, Aug 14, 2001 at 12:52:00PM -0400, gabriel rosenkoetter wrote:
> 
> Right. Forgot to mention (as you obviously know already, Nathan)
> that dvdview can also spit out AC3 format audio on stdout (the -3
> flag rather than the -A).
> 
> As regards the ac3dec thing... I don't understand why it had to be
> removed. Binary packages, sure, but with the pgksrc Makefiles, we're
> just providing an easy way for someone to get at a third party's
> software through our operating system.
> 
> Oh well.

It is unfortunate the entire package was removed.  Most of the issues
surrounding DeCSS was with "linking" to the software.  It should be
possible to just remove the information that allows the ac3dec to be
automatically downloaded, and just say "the ac3dec-xzy.tar.gz needs to
be downloaded to distfiles manually before this package will work."

There is no link, and no information about where to get the tarball, so
that should not be any violation of DMCA or whatever.  If it is still
considered to be making it "easy" to install ac3dec then I would argue
that InstallSHIELD, gcc, InternetExplorer, Windows, any TCP/IP protocol
stack, etc fall into the same "make it easy to load software" category.

Unfortunately The NetBSD Foundation probably doesn't have the resources to
even question the Dolby demands, let alone defend themselves in court over
a few Kbytes of a Makefile and one URL "link" buried it in.

-Andrew