libdvdcss -- followup

["Jay F. Shachter" <jay%m5.chicago.il.us@localhost>]

I see what you are saying about libdvdcss; but I do not see any
consistency.

I have libdvdcss on my OpenBSD system, and I didn't have to obtain it
in such a way that the OpenBSD people could plausibly deny knowing
anything about it.  In fact, I never even asked for it.  OpenBSD must
have given it to me automatically when I asked for something else.

Now, you could say that OpenBSD is deliberately located in Canada, so
as not to be beholden to the United States laws.  I have seen that
elsewhere.  But linuxfromscratch.org is not, as far as I know, located
in Canada; nonetheless, linuxfromscratch.org has no problem telling me
exactly how to download the source code to libdvdcss.  Moreover,
OpenBSD is terrified of the ZFS patents, whereas FreeBSD and NetBSD
have no fear of them.  So I see no consistency.

Similarly, Ghostscript -- a very long time ago -- was willing to
produce GIF output.  And then it stopped (somewhere between Version 5
and Version 6, if I recall correctly, it's been a long time).  As of
this writing, Ghostscript still refuses to produce GIF output.  And
this puzzles me greatly, because Ghostscript stopped producing GIF
output a very long time ago, and even if that was because of alleged
GIF patents, patents are short-lived, and the alleged GIF patents
would surely have expired by now.  Moroever, ImageMagick is perfectly
willing to produce GIF output.  Why should Ghostscript be terrified of
GIF patents, while ImageMagick is not?  I would be delighted if
someone could explain these inconsistencies to me.

	Jay F. Shachter
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