[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH 1/2] avcodec/nvenc: Include NVENC SDK header

[Andreas Cadhalpun]

On 10.12.2015 20:37, Nicolas George wrote:
> Le decadi 20 frimaire, an CCXXIV, Andreas Cadhalpun a écrit :
>> Using the header, one could create a dummy libfoo.so containing only
>> stub functions.
> 
> Exactly.
> 
>> I don't think the FSF would agree [1].
> 
> They do not make the law.

Neither do you or I.

> Claiming that the GPL enforces more than it can is obviously their game.

Ultimately, the only definitive answer can come from a court decision,
which will hopefully not be needed here.

>> The GPL does not require that programs can run, only that distributors
>> provide the source code of everything that is needed to run the program,
>> except system libraries.
>>
>> So you can distribute e.g. a GPL binary linking with libfoo.so, without
>> distributing libfoo.so, as long as you distribute the source code
>> of libfoo.so.
>> However, claiming that libfoo.so is not required to run the binary
>> would be bizarre.
> 
> Once again, exactly. I agree that having the program not work at all would
> probably not be sustainable. But for an optional feature (a codec, for
> example), having a GPL-compatible stub libfoo.so that just prints "feature
> not available" is perfectly legal.

One could argue endlessly about where to draw the line...

On the other hand I think we agreed to not enable nvenc by default,
so lets just do it that way.

That leaves the question of whether or not to include the header,
but I have no strong opinion on that.

Best regards,
Andreas