Would it be feasible for a driver patch to be shared via e.g. an anonymous torrent, with a checksum (to certify authenticity) held somewhere more reliable, like GitHub?

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mikepurvis 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Sounds like what we used to go through years ago with sound editors that had to have a separate button for downloading and inserting the MP3 encoder because the Fraunhofer license prohibited it from being directly distributed with the software.

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account42 a day ago | parent | next [-]

No, with MP3 the encoders/decoders source code was always available in the normal source code repositories (e.g. FFMPEG) - the problem was just with binary distributions.

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tucnak 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

This is still the case in Audacity... doesn't rip mp3's out the box.

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cartoonworld 2 days ago | parent [-]

Sure it does, it just always relied on external encoders.

I use audacity for recording vinyl occasionally, but for CD audio I have a bunch of cli scripts. Much easier.

	▲	bdavbdav 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		If those external encoders are there. That’s the “non-free” checkbox / package in Linux.

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binkHN 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Post the patch in a country that doesn't care? I remember OpenBSD used to do something similar with encryption to get around US laws.

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rtpg 3 days ago | parent [-]

I think Canonical did this with codecs for a long time too, behind a prompt

	▲	extraduder_ire 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Linux mint didn't need to ask due to being released from France, where software patents did not apply.