[FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] Cherry picks vs merges

[Michael Niedermayer]

Hi James

On Sun, Jun 01, 2025 at 02:27:37PM -0300, James Almer wrote:
> On 6/1/2025 12:22 PM, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> > Hi all
> > 
> > almpeg is now merged upto 1 months ago. (and since last merge it contains
> > bits of AGPL code)
> > 
> > The question now is, how does the community want to proceed from here?
> Full stop.
> 

> Not only you're trying to bypass explicit a license notice on
> technicalities,

This is a serious accusation.

Code is either under the LGPL license or it is not.
It cannot be sometimes under the LGPL license, the license headers
on the files in question, distrinbuted by Paul are unmodified
LGPL headers. There is no extra notice or anything in these headers.

If paul wants them to be GPL he can change these headers at any time.

And the "explicit license notice" you refer to is this:

"All Librempeg modifications, and any new files not available in FFmpeg, are licensed under GPL v2,
 unless stated otherwise."

And it IS stated otherwise in these files by the license header in these
files.

That said, with open source and free software it is the morally correct
thing, if one makes changes to code, to return these changes to the parent
project under the same license as the parent project.
This is morally the ONLY correct thing one can do.

The technicality is that one can change the LGPL to a GPL or AGPL.
The purpose of this is allowing to combine LGPL with GPL or AGPL
NOT to fork a project and prevent the parent project and its users
from having access to the modifications.

You can listen to some interviews by linus torvalds if you think
my point here is crazy.
I will reply to the rest of your mail seperately to keep this from becoming
too long

But one thing id like to mention here, your accusation escalates this
in a way that could reduce the chance of paul returning. And
I tried my best and i talked (emailed) with paul in the last days.
You knew i was working on this and i would have appreciated a private
message over a public accusation

thx

-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.
-- Epicurus
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