Re: [MPlayer-dev-eng] Re: help on libmpdemux usage (Modifié par Jérôme Cornet)

Jérôme Cornet jerome at aldorande.net
Thu Jan 15 19:59:46 CET 2004


Le 15 janv. 2004, à 18:20, D Richard Felker III a écrit :
>
>> After all, an ELF or MACH-O loader IS a published interface
>> to which you need to "link". So why can non-GPL OSes load
>> GPL software, or GPL OSes load non-GPL software ?

First, I will not repeat what Romain said, i perfectly agree with that,
i wouldn't have writtent better.

> Because of the exception in the GPL @ line 159.

Let's see, that line #159 :

"However, as a
special exception, the source code distributed need not include
anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
itself accompanies the executable."

QuickTime IS a major component of MacOS X. You cannot install MacOS X 
without
it. There are no possibilities to have a MacOS X system without 
QuickTime.
My codec is written for MacOS X, so it implicitly requires MacOS X which
is not GPL the same way as Emacs for Windows implicitly requires ...er 
Windows!

> in the source to begin with. This does NOT imply that they're giving
> their permission for parts of MPlayer source to be used in the (highly
> proprietary) QuickTime framework.

That's not the point. No one talk about integrating parts of MPlayer. 
The
codec remains well separated and could be used with others compatible
libraries, such as openquicktime.

>> Or do you claim that doing the
>> exact same thing is legal if the loader is a shell
>> (some of them non GPL, not everyone uses bash),
>
> ROTFL, this shows your ignorance. The shell has nothing to do with
> program loading.

Well, yourself were not proving a special knwoledge of QuickTime and its
mechanisms some emails before... Whatever you call it, the matter is 
that
the system in a way or in another is calling executable code stored in
a file. That could be a GPL part of the system, a proprietary part such 
as
the Finder (~ Explorer under MacOS X) or the QuickTime Library.

>> but not if it is QuickTime Player ? What if the module
>> was a wrapper that simply launched mplayer via exec() ?
>
> Then it wouldn't work. :)

You bet?

>
>> Seems to me more politics than anything else.
>
> Yes, the purpose of the GPL is political: to keep code free and ensure
> that it's not taken for the purpose of enhancing proprietary software
> while providing no benefit to free software.

The guy was not talking about GPL's politics which is very good.
Maybe i will ask the FSF about that matter, but to me the problem is 
that YOU don't
want me to use MPlayer's parts in my GPL software. I don't understand 
why you
continue to argue about GPL. Just say "no", that's you right, and I 
respect it.
You don't have to insult me or me dishonest.

>
>> That's
>> fine, it's *your* code, and you can do whatever you
>> want with it, but I think you need something more
>> restrictive than the GPL for what (I understand)
>> you want.

I agree.

Jérôme
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