[MPlayer-cvslog] r26723 - in trunk: Makefile av_opts.c av_opts.h

[Diego Biurrun]

On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 03:07:44PM +0200, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> IMO a simple central statement somewhere about license header less files is
> enough, there should be no need to copy and paste the header into each
> file.

We have already had this discussion for FFmpeg, which has a much clearer
licensing situation than MPlayer.  Let me reiterate the main points that
apply here:

1) MPlayer is a patchwork of different libraries and files from diverse
sources.  They have a multitude of different licensing terms.  Some of
these files do have license headers, some do not.  However, not all
files without such a header are covered by the terms outlined in the
LICENSE file, as an example look at some of the files below vidix/ that
come from xfree86.

So a statement about files without license headers would have to list
exactly which license applies to which file. Move some files around and
this quickly becomes a burden to maintain and you can be sure that
updates to such a file will be forgotten.

2) Some people (our developers even) interpret the lack of a license header
as meaning GPL v2 instead of any version, as clearly stated in the text
of the GPL.  So there obviously is room for misinterpretation.  Unified
license headers avoid this ambiguity.

3) Last and absolutely not least, code from MPlayer gets copied around a
lot.  Once it has moved between two or three code bases, attributions
can easily get lost.  It will no longer be clear where a file comes from
and which license it is under.  It might become a part of code that is
not compatible with the GPL.  This would violate the intentions of the
authors.


If we were to start afresh and could say that all files in this project
are under license XYZ, that would be great.  Unfortunately we do not
have that luxury.

I can understand that license headers for all files are burdensome, but
there simply is no acceptable alternative.  It is the smallest evil.

Diego