[MPlayer-dev-eng] mp3lib license; backport to mpg123

[Thomas Orgis]

Am Mon, 26 Jun 2006 22:28:15 +0800
schrieb "Zuxy Meng" <zuxy.meng at gmail.com>: 

> > Zuxy: You are hopefully more easy to track down - Can I use your SSE patch under LGPL?
> >
> 

> Yes you can.
Great.

> However dct64_sse is a derivative work of dct64_MMX
> (already LGPLed?) 
Difficult - I only know that it's from "higway". No note in source (also in mpg123 - I only have an outdated eMail address).

> and dct64_altivec so you might have to get
> permission from Romain Dolbeau first.:-)
OK, at least he seems to be trackable... we are speaking of the Romain with the domain of the same name in his e-Mail (rap this;-)?

We need some internet law that says "code in the public domain for N years is placed in the public domain" ...
I'm very interested in any hints that help tracking down the people responsible for the mmx and 3dnow optimizations. They gave their code to the author of mpg123 and noone cared about some explicit license statement.
This was in the old days where people coded something and were just happy that it worked and is useful for someone else.
Strictly speaking, this code is not GPL. Not for mpg123 and not for MPlayer.
Or am I wrong?
Did perhaps the MPlayer project at some time get some statement from authors?

In my decode_3dnow I simply read:
/// The author of this program disclaim whole expressed or implied
/// warranties with regard to this program, and in no event shall the
/// author of this program liable to whatever resulted from the use of
/// this program. Use it at your own risk.

That and the fact that these patches were placed freely available in the internet suggest that it's under a "No problem Bugroff" license but it doesn't state it clearly.

Is Arpi, the initial creator of this mp3lib, still around and perhaps reading this list?


Thomas.