[Ffmpeg-devel] overall license review - adding proper license headers

[Diego Biurrun]

On Sun, Sep 03, 2006 at 02:27:04PM -0400, Rich Felker wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 03, 2006 at 05:50:06PM +0200, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> > > I'm fully aware that the wording may not be yours.  Nonetheless this
> > > issue needs clarification.  Let's please leave old grudges aside now.
> > > 
> > > I'll simply ask you now: Did/Do you agree to relicense that file under the
> > > LGPL for FFmpeg?  If yes, then I'll change the license (unless there are
> > > other contributors that need to be notified/asked), if no, I'll remove
> > > that note.
> > 
> > Judging by that old thread and what Michel has said here I have to
> > assume that it's GPL-only and not going to be relicensed.  Unless Michel
> > decides to relicense his code I'm going to remove the confusing note
> > from the top of the file and put it under --enable-gpl in a few days.
> 
> I think Michel's intention was a sort of dual license like this:
> 1. GPL
> 2. You may link the code into any program X provided that the code is
>    used as part of ffmpeg (and of course provided that program X can
>    legitimately link to ffmpeg).
> 
> This is much less permissive than licensing under LGPL but would still
> make it possible to enable the code when --enable-gpl is omitted,
> although it might be surprising and unintuitive to some users if they
> could not use the entire combined library under LGPL...
> 
> At least ask him if this is what he meant I think.

Your opinion sounds plausible, but this is just not good enough.  All
the statements we have from Michel say that the code is intended to be
GPL.  So unless he explicitly gives his OK to license this as LGPL,
we'll have to assume it's GPL.

Besides such a dual license is only bound to create a lot of
complication.  IMO it's preferable to just keep plain GPL in this case.

Diego