[MPlayer-dev-eng] Relicensing MPlayer or parts of it to LGPL

[Carl Eugen Hoyos]

2016-09-25 14:09 GMT+02:00 wm4 <nfxjfg at googlemail.com>:
> On Mon, 28 Dec 2015 18:52:43 +0000 (UTC)
> Carl Eugen Hoyos <cehoyos at ag.or.at> wrote:
>
>> wm4 <nfxjfg <at> googlemail.com> writes:
>>
>> > To avoid this, I'm thinking of relicensing mpv to LGPL 2.1
>>
>> Complete unrelated to the fact that at least one of the
>> original copyright holders was strongly against such a
>> relicensing:

(This is of course also relevant, apart from below.)

>> Please don't, you cannot ask all authors, we even failed
>> for a single file in FFmpeg.

Allow me to repeat this to make sure I am not misunderstood:
We failed for a single file (!) in FFmpeg first to produce a
complete list of people who have to be asked (the original
authors of the file were forgotten) and when this was understood
we failed to contact the original authors, no active email address
could be found.

I do not believe it is realistic to assume you can contact all
people who have made non-cosmetic contributions to the "core"
of MPlayer.

[...]

> https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/issues/2033

I don't understand this issue:
It contains a long (but very difficult to read) list of people who agreed
but where is the list of people who have to be asked?

> I also wonder whether this can be done:
> authors which only did minor cosmetic changes of some sort do not
> have a copyright on the file (consider code reindenting)

Sorry if I misunderstand this paragraph (iiuc, we both are not native
speakers): J-B (who is said to have some experience in the matter)
has repeatedly explained that every (non-whitespace, not purely
cosmetic) change creates copyright.
While I am not sure if he is right, his assumption makes this task
even more difficult.

Carl Eugen