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

[James Almer]

On 6/1/2025 4:23 PM, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> 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.

This is the technicality i was talking about. The fact he copy-pasted a 
boilerplate LGPL header in all new files being used as a way to invoke 
the "unless stated otherwise" part of the notice.

I'm not against merging his changes, and i apologize if what i said 
before sounded like an accusation, but the way i want this to go forward 
is with him being ok with it, and not us trying to find a way to 
workaround what was seemingly his intention to license his changes a 
certain way.

> 
> 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

Paul showed up on IRC a week or so ago and said you did not email him. 
If that changed in the last couple days, why didn't you or him mention it?

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: OpenPGP_signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 495 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <https://ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/attachments/20250601/9b00d338/attachment.sig>