[FFmpeg-devel] GPL version matter

[Michael Niedermayer]

Hi

On Sun, Jul 01, 2007 at 10:32:25AM +0200, Reimar D?ffinger wrote:
> Hello,
> On Sun, Jul 01, 2007 at 01:22:48AM +0200, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> > On Sun, Jul 01, 2007 at 12:48:43AM +0200, Reimar D?ffinger wrote:
> > > On Sat, Jun 30, 2007 at 10:53:20PM +0200, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> > > > On Sat, Jun 30, 2007 at 10:19:12PM +0200, Christophe GISQUET wrote:
> > > > > Michael Niedermayer a ?crit :
> > > > > > theres something you miss here, and that is the following part of the LGPL
> > > > > > 2.1:
> > > > > 
> > > > > Indeed I missed it, thinking 2.1 was a matter of phraseology. I
> > > > > generally don't make my choices on absolute confidence in a sunny
> > > > > future, or more tersely, that I will like any GPL versions coming out
> > > > > any day.
> > > > > 
> > > > > > so even without the "(at your option) any later version."
> > > > > > anyone can take your LGPL 2.1 code and change it to GPL 12.3.4
> > > > > 
> > > > > Then let my obvious question after that obvious correction be:
> > > > > Are contributions under the strictly version 2 GPL accepted?
> > > > 
> > > > yes, as long as its in seperate new file(s), under proper CONFIG_GPL2 and
> > > > you first submit some patch to configure which does actually contain
> > > > the needed CONFIG_GPL* setup code and this patch does get accepted by
> > > > mans or diego
> > > > (note, the changes to configure must be under LGPL of course)
> > > 
> > > I am not at all happy about fracturing ffmpeg even further down into
> > > different license versions. With that there are then already 4 different
> > > ffmpeg variants from a license standpoint... At least some arguments why
> > > this is important enough to start down this messy road might be
> > > appropriate, in my view it is "only" optimization after all (though that
> > > is on the other hand a reason why I don't mind more "restrictive"
> > > licenses in general here, it is just having yet something else).
> > 
> > could you elaborate on what "down to earth" disadvantages the license
> > fracturing has?
> 
> For those using precompiled ffmpeg libs it becomes more and more
> difficult to see which features they will get and which obligations they
> have under the license (or even to find out which license exactly
> applies).
> Like this we will get further and further away from having the "ffmpeg"
> library and instead have lots of different ones.
> But the possibly bigger concern seems to me in this case what will
> happen if the next person asks for GPL3 (or a future LGPL3) only. Then
> there would no longer be any full ffmpeg that is still distributable.
> Would we even have to create two tarballs, one containing the GPL2 and
> the other containing the GPL3 compatible code only?

you are assuming here that a ffmpeg under GPL3 is distributeable to begin
with, iam not so sure here, the GPL3 is a scary complex document
which at least makes non personal use of multimedia software practically
impossible, that is your choice is between violating the GPL or going to
court with MPEG-LA about their dubios patent claims
due to that i likely will never accept GPL3(+) submissions


> 
> > the license is the authors decission and rejecting code because its under
> > (L)GPL X(+) / BSD / public domain seems to make no sense to me
> 
> In this special case I think allowing GPL2-only (LGPL2 only is not a
> problem AFAICT) to my understanding would not allow any other authors in
> the future to choose GPL3 only without us removing the GPL2-only code.

which part of the GPL forbids source files with differing copyright to 
exist, if they are never compiled together or supposed to, id argue that
they are seperate works ...


[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the
dead. -- Aristotle 
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