[Ffmpeg-devel] Patch for dynamic liba52.so loading

[Måns Rullgård]

"Ronald S. Bultje" <rbultje at ronald.bitfreak.net> writes:

> On Sat, 2005-06-11 at 20:20, M?ns Rullg?rd wrote:
>> When you do think about it, I hope you will see past the FSF's
>> political agenda, and apply the proper combination of law and logic
>> according to the letter, rather than mistaking the wishful thinking
>> of the FSF for the truth.  Be they right or wrong, they are definitely
>> biased in their opinions.
>
> Even if, strictly taken, some country somewhere in the world in some
> obscure way does not disallow linking GPL with closed-source binaries,

I'm talking about every signatory of the Berne convention here.  This
includes (most of) Europe and the USA.

> it may still be the intention of the author of a GPL'ed lib to not see
> this happen *under any circumstances* (which, from past experience,
> seems to be the case for the liba52 author). Linking isn't necessarily
> just gcc or ld here, those dlopen() hacks may also qualify as linking to
> the authors. As authors, they are very much so in the position to have
> opinions on that. And (imo) they may very well feel angry about it when
> it happens, even though the law says it is not illegal given the license
> under which they released it.

If the author wishes to restrict linking, he should state the
conditions clearly in the license.  It doesn't help sticking the head
in the sand mumbling "but RMS told me...".

> Law is only interesting to lawyers anyway. I tend to care more about
> actual intentions.

One good indication of intention is the chosen license.

-- 
M?ns Rullg?rd
mru at inprovide.com