[MPlayer-DOCS] CVS: homepage/src projects.src.en,1.94,1.95

[Diego Biurrun]

Gabucino writes:
> Diego Biurrun CVS wrote:
> > Log Message:
> > The QuickView Pro license no longer forbids reverse engineering.
> I am no longer legal maintainer, but must I really read homepage changelogs
> to correct bullshit??

I don't see anything to correct ...

> Read qv.txt:

I have.

> All files belonging to QuickView contain proprietary information which are  
> protected by copyright. This Agreement is governed by the laws of Germany, 
> the State of California and the United States, including patent and  
> copyright laws.       
> ...
> The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement will  
> not affect the validity or enforceability of any other provision of this  
> agreement.                                                      
> ...

Yes, this is a quote from the QuickView Pro license.  What exactly is
your point, please?  Which portion of what you quoted above warrants
keeping QuickView Pro blacklisted and for what reason?

I've done my homework, now please do yours.

Let's review some facts:

Here is the text that was on the projects page before I removed it:

QuickView Pro
  Closed source media player for DOS and Linux, using FFmpeg. Its
  license conflicts with the LGPL (forbids reverse engineering).

So the point of friction appears to have been a license that
explicitly forbids reverse engineering, thus conflicting with the
LGPL section 6:

    6. As an exception to the Sections above, you may also combine or
  link a "work that uses the Library" with the Library to produce a
  work containing portions of the Library, and distribute that work
  under terms of your choice, provided that the terms permit
  modification of the work for the customer's own use and reverse
  engineering for debugging such modifications.

A news entry from the 15th of march 2003 talks about QuickView Pro:

http://mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/news-archive.html#legalsum

In this news entry you quote the following license conditions for
QuickView Pro:

  All files belonging to QuickView contain proprietary information
  which are protected by copyright. This includes reverse engineering,
  decompiling and disassembling. No part may be altered or translated
  without the prior written consent of the author. Any violation of
  the copyright will be prosecuted by the author and by Intel.

  EXPORT LAWS: You agree that this Software is not intended to be
  shipped either directly or indirectly to country groups
  Q,S,W,Y,Z,Afghanistan or the People's Republic of China, unless a
  validated export license is obtained from the U.S. Department of
  Commerce.

And they do indeed conflict with section 6 of the LGPL since reverse
engineering is forbidden in the quoted license terms.  So far so good,
the project was blacklisted.

What is the situation today?

The license agreement is available online (scroll to the very bottom):

http://multimediaware.com/qv/qvdoc.htm

The license text and copyright notices written there are the same as
those in the qv.txt file contained in the distribution of QuickView
Pro 2.54.  The full text is quoted below for reference, the above
mentioned two paragraphs have been shortened to the following one:

  All files belonging to QuickView contain proprietary information
  which are protected by copyright. This Agreement is governed by the
  laws of Germany, the State of California and the United States,
  including patent and copyright laws.

It's pretty standard legalese and QuickView Pro is a proprietary
application, but there is obviously no prohibition of reverse
engineering in there.  My (limited, IANAL) legal knowledge does not
spot any other conflict with the LGPL in there.  Prohibition of
reverse engineering was what lead to the blacklisting, no more
prohibition of reverse engineering, no more blacklisting.

Again: What is your point?  What bullshit are you trying to correct?
What are you trying to prove with the licensing terms you quote?

Diego




Legal stuff:
This program is copyrighted 1994-2004 by Wolfgang Hesseler, all rights
reserved.
This Software is provided "AS IS". The author makes no warranty of any
kind either expressed or implied. In particular the author makes no
warranty as to merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose or
a particular hardware configuration. Furthermore the author is not
responsible for any damages of any kind, including profit losses and
data loss or other incidental or consequential damages arising out of
your use or inability to use the program. The person using the
software bears all risk as to the quality and performance of the
software.

All files belonging to QuickView contain proprietary information which
are protected by copyright. This Agreement is governed by the laws of
Germany, the State of California and the United States, including
patent and copyright laws.

License agreement for Shareware distributors:
Shareware distributors may distribute this program if no files of the
package are left out or modified.

The information about some codecs is from XAnim. Thanks to Mark
Podlipec.
Thanks to Edd SonicSound for providing sound processing algorithms.
Cinepak is a trademark of Radius.
Indeo and the Indeo Logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the
USA and other countries.
QPEG is a registered trademark of Q-Team Dr. Knabe GmbH, www.q-team.de
This product uses Ultimotion(tm) IBM video technology. Copyright
International Business Machines Corporation 1994, All rights reserved.
The GSM 6.10 support is based on code from the Communications and
Operating Systems Research Group at the Technische Universitaet
Berlin; Copyright 1992, 1993, 1994 by Jutta Degener and Carsten
Bormann.
The MPEG Audio Code is based in part on MPG123; Copyright (c) 1995-98
by Michael Hipp, all rights reserved.
The Graphics Interchange Format(c) is the Copyright property of
CompuServe Incorporated. GIF(sm) is a Service Mark property of
CompuServe Incorporated.
TARGA is a registered trademark of Truevision, Inc.
This software is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG
Group.
This product includes software developed by DivX DivXNetworks,
Inc. DivX is a trademark of DivXNetworks, Inc, www.divx.com
This product uses parts of ffmpeg, Copyright (c) Fabrice Bellard,
ffmpeg.sourceforge.net
QuickTime is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.
Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
All other product names mentioned in this software are trademarks or
registered trademarks of their respective owners.
The Ogg Vorbis code is Copyright (c) 2002, Xiph.org Foundation. This
software is provided by the copyright holders and contributors "as is"
and any express or implied warranties, including, but not limited to,
the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular
purpose are disclaimed. In no event shall the foundation or
contributors be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special,
exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to,
procurement of substitute goods or services; loss of use, data, or
profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of
liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including
negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this
software, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.