Jimbo wrote: "If it is free software, and not encumbered by patents (why
are all the
English sites 404) then we can host it. If there are patent issues
applicable to the U.S. only, then I'm sure some wikipedian will
volunteer a stable place."
The program I was talking about, Timidity++
(
http://timidity.sourceforge.net/), is GPL,
and it converts midi into other formats.
We all know ogg is not patent encumbered. As for midi, I went to our article
on Midi:
The SMF specification was developed by, and is maintained by, the MIDI
Manufacturer's Association (MMA)
So I went to their website and found: The MMA maintains strategic
relationships with
other organizations to assist and promote the use of MIDI technology in new
areas.
These relationships have lead to the inclusion of MIDI in MPEG-4, IEEE-1394
(FireWire),
and 3GPP (3rd Generation Mobile Phones) standards.
--http://www.midi.org/about-mma/abtmma.shtml
If it's part of an IEEE standard, I *highly* doubt it is encumbered by
patents - I'm almost
certain that you have to surrender IP claims to be included in one.
The only thing I added were the patches necessary to make it work on windows
(the rar files from
http://web.archive.org/web/20030618040819/www.stardate.bc.ca/eawpatches/htm…)
All of this leads me to believe that hosting this program won't be a
problem.
--Mark