[Foundation-l] File format policy

[Brion Vibber]

Thomas Dalton wrote:
> The thing that jumps out at me is the unqualified use of "must". This
> policy would make it impossible to use content for which there are no
> free formats (not that I can think of any examples of such content at
> the moment). Is that intentional? A "where possible" could be added to
> get around it if it's not intentional. (I'm undecided on whether it
> would be good to completely ban such material or not.)

If no free formats exist for some medium, we'd probably prefer to
encourage the creation of free formats for it.


Note that our software policy already means we can't require that people
use non-free software.

In many cases that'll cover the same ground as non-free formats; the
main exceptions are for patent-encumbered standards (eg, the MPEG family
- MP3, AAC, H.264, etc) and widely-deployed proprietary formats that
have been reverse-engineered by FOSS developers (eg, Flash).

-- brion