[MPlayer-dev-eng] Please, tell me if my program is illegal.

[The Wanderer]

xarion wrote:

> 
> On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 19:15:45 -0400, The Wanderer wrote:
> 
>> xarion wrote:
>> 
>>> Ok. There are patched files.
>> 
>> And... do you plan to submit the patches for consideration...?
>> 
>>> I still have a doubts because i don't know whether my program is
>>> legal. I don't want to have a troubles.
>> 
>> Whether or not your program is legal depends, according to my
>> understanding, almost entirely on two factors.
>> 
>> One, the way in which you make both it and the open-source code on
>> which it is based available. (Yes, you have to do both, unless you
>> simply parse the output of an unmodified copy of a program whose 
>> source is available elsewhere.)
>> 
>> Two, the way in which your program uses the open-source code on
>> which it is based.
>> 
>> We do not know enough about either of these things to give you more
>> specifics than "read the GPL and make see how it applies". You
>> have not explained how you plan to distribute your program, and you
>> have not explained what your program does in interacting with
>> MPlayer.
>> 
>> I've probably misrepresented something here, but this is close
>> enough.
>> 
>> Also, I repeat: please do NOT top-post. I'm not going to be arsed
>> to fix the quoting again this time - it's enough of an aggravation
>> doing it at all.
> 
> Sorry about top-post.

Acknowledged. (Admittedly, point-by-point interleaved posting is even
better, but at least bottom posting is an improvement.)7

> My program is open source. User can find source code in directory
> where he (she) install my program. I don't know whether I must send
> the patched files to consideration because the changes are only for
> Cygwin.

"Must", no, but it's only polite.

> Even that I included patched files in my last post. I don't know
> whether I must create new thread about my patches.

I honestly didn't notice that there even *was* an attachment to your
previous post. I don't generally expect that a post as small as 10K will
contain a non-plaintext attachment, and you didn't make any mention of
having attached anything, so I didn't even look.

> I explain everything about distribute of my program. I think that You
> wasn't read my first post.  I will quote it:

Yes, I read your first post. Apparently I missed at least one point
(because I could have sworn that you had *not* indicated that the
modified MPlayer sources would be made available), but it still remains
that your original post does not address the question of whether or not
your own program requires your modifications in order to work at all -
specifically whether or not it actually interacts directly (that is, on
a source-code level) with your modified version of MPlayer, rather than
calling it via -slave or the like, and whether or not it would work just
as well with a completely unmodified version.

If it does so interact - and I'm not entirely sure why else your program
would *depend* on any modifications you might have made, even leaving
aside the fact that all of the features you mention as having been added
(except the "newer DirectX version") are present in MPlayer already -
then your own program must AFAIK be released under the GPL itself. (I
see no mention in the original post of your program being open source,
although you've now stated that it is; I also see no mention of what
license it would be released under.)

If it does not so interact, then AFAIK you are not even required to
distribute MPlayer along with your program - but then I'm not sure
either why you'd have bothered to make the modifications, or why you
wouldn't have submitted them back to here as they were being made.

-- 
       The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.