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

[Rich Felker]

On Thu, Jun 22, 2006 at 01:39:46PM +0200, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> 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.

I agree that it violates the GPL regardless of whather you use dlopen
or -lunrar... Why do people keep insisting on this useless rar support
anyway?

Rich