[FFmpeg-devel] full swscale relicensing to LGPL

Diego Biurrun diego
Tue Mar 24 09:00:41 CET 2009


On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 07:56:56AM +0100, Attila Kinali wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Mar 2009 11:05:50 +0100
> Diego Biurrun <diego at biurrun.de> wrote:
> 
> > > Actually, i think it's so common to violate licenses, that very
> > > few people think about it.
> > 
> > I hear this all the time, but I refuse to accept this explanation.
> > Everybody that uses a computer knows that it's forbidden to use
> > "pirated" software.
> 
> Welcome to reality!

I'm perfectly aware of what you write.

> > This minimal, incomplete and confused snippet of information is enough
> > to deduce that you are not allowed to simply copy, distribute and reuse
> > arbitrary software without adhering to some conditions or paying for it.
> 
> Who cares? Nobody is going to find out anyways!

While it would be interesting to know what percentage of FFmpeg license
violations we are aware of, we are aware of many.  Thus chances of
getting caught are definitely not nil.

> > > I know, i'm generalizing, but given that the people at that company
> > > were nothing special and typical programmers/managers, i'd say
> > > license violation, especially of OSS programms is so common, that
> > > the whole economy would grind to a halt if all violations would
> > > be prosecuted.
> > 
> > That it's common or that everybody else does it is not an excuse.
> 
> No it doesnt, but it is still true, IMHO.
> You'd be surprised what is going on in the comercial world.
> 
> An other example of what i've seen recently is that company A
> contracted company B to build a specialized electronic device
> including software, but gave very little information on how
> it should work, as they didnt know how to do it themselves.
> Company B build something that they believed does what the
> customer wants and shipped it. Company A now claims that it
> doesn't work at all and does not adhere to their specifications
> and thus didn't pay company B. This hole thing went to curt,
> just to find out that company A is selling this "not working" device
> and it seems to work rather well...
> 
> Yes, this kind of stuff doesnt happen every day, but it's
> common enough that each and every company who works as a
> contractor has to deal with it once in a while.

This is news to whom?  Surely not to me...

> > OSS projects need to tighten up enforcement so that this culture of
> > abuse is stopped.
> 
> Tighten up means to hunt down and sue license violaters, but
> this requires time and money.

I think we shall soon see how well the SFLC does its job.

Diego



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