license, was Re: [MPlayer-dev-eng] Sorry, but can I add licence lines in sources?

[D Richard Felker III]

On Sun, Nov 24, 2002 at 03:03:48AM +0100, Andrea Mennucc wrote:
> hi
> 
> On Sat, Nov 23, 2002 at 10:25:40PM +0100, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> > Hi
> > i hope debian will ever treat multimedia software like other software, i mean 
> > if they would reject software because of missing copyright headers in a few 
> > files than there would be practically nothing left in debian, even the kernel 
> > has plenty of files with no copyright, just grep it if u dont belive it
> 
> as I said in other e-mail, you are right: even the kernel 
>  has plenty of files with no copyright
> 
> but there  is a misunderstanding here
> 
> the reason why Debian ftp-installer rejected mplayer is that: I 
> have read all the files in mplayer, and AFAICT there are
> files in mplayer which have a license that is not GPL: see list at bottom

If you still have any questions, write back, most of your concerns
were bogus though.

>  ----- here is the list of all the files in mplayer that do not have
>  an explicit GPL or LGPL statement
> 
>     1) The following files have a license:
>  
>     libavcodec/jfdctint.c
>       same license as libjpeg62 (which should be shipped with the
>       code, and it is not)

If you insist, remove the references to it from mpegvideo.c. lavc will
work without it. Or I suppose the license could just be added to the
top of the file. Anyone care to do that?

>     libvo/vo_pgm.c
>     libvo/vo_md5.c
>       probably the same as libavcodec/fdctref.c (same copyright MPEG...)

I think the copyright notices there are probably wrong and just left
over from stuff that's long since been deleted. If you look, all the
functions in vo_pgm.c are for handling the libvo API. There are only 5
lines remotely related to writing pgm files. vo_md5.c is similar.

>     libvo/vo_sdl.c
>       undecided, but it seems that it was GPL in the past

Definitely GPL.

>     mp3lib/*
>       refers to nonexistent README; moreover the code seems to be
>       taken  from mpglib in mpg123, which       is not  GPL.

Wrong, look at the top of http://www.mpg123.org/. mpglib is LGPL,
which can be redistributed under GPL.

>     libmpdemux/genres.h
>       Copyright (C) 2001  Jason Carter
>       refers to an unavailable LICENSE; it only contains the list of genres

Search fm. ID3EDIT is GPL. Besides this is just a data table shared
between all ID3-aware apps and is probably not copyrightable anyway.

>     2) In the following files there is an explicit copyright statement, but no
>     license: for some files I could track down a GPL or LGPL origin:
>  
>     libvo/vo_mpegpes.c
>       same as ffmpeg
>     libvo/vo_dxr3.c
>       was part of ffmpeg, see
>       http://mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-cvslog/2001-November/003377.html

Read vo_mpegpes.c. The DXR3-specific functionality was just separated
off from the muxer, so that's why there's no ffmpeg copyright on
vo_dxr3.c anymore. FYI, the ffmpeg license is LGPL which is GPL
compatible!

>     drivers/video/radeonfb.c
>       framebuffer driver for ATI Radeon chipset video boards,
>       probably from linux kernel code;  drivers/radeon/radeon_vid.c is GPL

Not part of mplayer, this is just included in CVS for convenience or
something.

>     linux/lrmi.c
>      seems to be taken from  http://cvs.debian.org/lrmi/        

I have no idea.

>  
>     loader/*.c
>     loader/module.c
>     loader/pe_image.c
>     loader/pe_resource.c
>     loader/elfdll.c
>     loader/wine/*
>     loader/qtx/debug/module.c
>       from wine ?

AFAIK, everything in the win32 loader is either derived from wine (GPL
compatible) or written by the mplayer authors.

>    3) This I think we may consider GPL, since they are part of the mplayer
>      code, and were written by mplayer's authors
> 
>     libvo/vo_dga.c
>     loader/dshow/DS_AudioDecoder.c

Of course, anything written as part of mplayer is GPL.

>     4) these are the files remaining:
> 
>     TOOLS/benchmark-gab/README
>       Author: gabucino
>       License: for exclusive usage with MPlayer (wonder;)
>     [I  understand that this is intended as a pun; but the
>      phrase "for exclusive usage" is against the Debian Freesoftware
>      guideline; so I wish that gabucino may not mind changing the
>      License statement]
>     TOOLS/mpfc/mpfc-kr.c
>     TOOLS/mpfc/mpfc-ce.c
>       Author: Sunjin Yang <lethean at realtime.ssu.ac.kr>
>       just says that it was created for mplayer

TOOLS/* is basically irrelevant to packaging.

Rich