[MPlayer-dev-eng] Re: [PATCH] Use libunrar when available (2nd try)

[Diego Biurrun]

On Thu, Jun 22, 2006 at 07:34:37PM +0800, Zuxy Meng wrote:
> 2006/6/22, Zuxy Meng <zuxy.meng at gmail.com>:
> >
> >2006/6/22, Rich Felker <dalias at aerifal.cx>:
> >> On Wed, Jun 21, 2006 at 05:55:02PM +0800, Zuxy Meng wrote:
> >> > Hi,
> >> > Thanks! How about this one?
> >>
> >> Can you explain why on earth we would want to use dlopen at all rather
> >> than just linking correctly?
> >
> >Chiefly a consideration for package maintainers. As discussed in a
> >previous thread, libunrar.so is quite unpopular, absent in most
> >distros. dlopen makes those who use mplayer binary packages happy,
> >because they only have to build & copy libunrar.so to somewhere sane,
> >without recompiling the whole mplayer.
> >
> >Same is true for Windows users. And RARLab distribute unrar.dll and
> >unrar.a binaries, but there's no libunrar.dll.a.
> 
> Forgot to ask, what's the legal implication here? Will linking against
> libunrar.so violate GPL? I remember someone has told me dlopen it
> won't violate anything.

That's a big can of worms.  You'll find different opinions out there.
The FSF position is that it will violate the GPL.

Diego