[MPlayer-dev-eng] [RFC] upgrade license on LGPL 2 files

[Aurelien Jacobs]

Diego Biurrun wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 01:37:46PM +0200, Aurelien Jacobs wrote:
> > Robert Swain wrote:
> > 
> > > 2008/9/11 Diego Biurrun <diego at biurrun.de>:
> > > > On Mon, Sep 08, 2008 at 07:41:11AM +0200, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> > > >> The following files are licensed as LGPL 2 or later, not LGPL 2.1 or
> > > >> later:
> > > >>
> > > >> libvo/vo_gif89a.c
> > > >> libvo/vo_directfb2.c
> > > >> libvo/vo_quartz.h
> > > >> libvo/vo_dfbmga.c
> > > >> TOOLS/dvd2divxscript.pl
> > > >> libmpdemux/demux_avs.h
> > > >> libmpdemux/demux_avs.c
> > > >>
> > > >> I propose that we upgrade to LGPL 2.1 or later on these files in order
> > > >> to reduce the number of licenses used in our code base.
> > > >
> > > > Since I am hearing no objections, I will do this after the weekend.
> > > 
> > > Hmm. Have you contacted authors individually? It seems wrong to me to
> > > alter the license without all authors' explicit consent.
> > 
> > The respective authors already explicitly allowed such a change (by
> > using "or later" in their original license).
> 
> Precisely.  Otherwise relicensing would be impossible without the
> authors' consent.
> 
> > So it's not needed to contact them (still it would be more polite).
> 
> No.  There is no need to ask for a permission twice, it was already
> given.  It's not even polite, it's a useless bother.  And what would you
> do if the permission was not renewed?

Please re-read the sentence you quoted... I intentionally used the
word "contact" instead of "ask". The idea was simply to tell the
author that their code is being re-licensed. But, anyway, I guess
you're right that it's a useless bother.

Aurel