From attila at kinali.ch Mon Aug 2 15:04:02 2004 From: attila at kinali.ch (Attila Kinali) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2004 22:04:02 +0900 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040724134116.D24C238AEF@mail.mplayerhq.hu> References: <20040724134116.D24C238AEF@mail.mplayerhq.hu> Message-ID: <20040802130402.GA968@pai.kinali.ch> Moin, Is it just me or is there something burning ? On Sat, Jul 24, 2004 at 03:41:16PM +0200, Arpi wrote: > I'LL BE BACK: > Some of you already know from irc, i'm planning to continue work > ok mplayer g2 core from september. I left g2 because of the license > conflict: i don't like gpl, especially for the g2 core, and no, i > did not change my option, but the license :) It would be great to have you back, but spelling out conditions at the beginning isnt IMHO the right thing. It sounds like we could not do anything w/o, so please be carefull on how you write these things. BTW: did you chose this time by purpose ? Knowing that Rich is currently away ? I know that when he comes back and reads these mails that the whole situation will explode. (you both like flaming too much) > NEW LICENSE: > So i plan to change g2 core license to lgpl. > So no dual licensing, no commercial licensing and such mess. > LGPL should be better for a (set of) library(es) anyway, and > it let commercial users to link it with their optionally > closedsource UIs, drivers etc. > We won't get money directly (opposed to original dual licensing plan), > but as iive said, nobody wants money, so it should not be problem. :) > Although it can be expected that some commercial users (think of > settopbox, divx player etc makers) will sponsor some of you to do > custom development for them. I'm personally not interested much in > these, but i was asked by several companies in the past year > (including some quite big ones), so i know there is such interest. I think everyone who works on a videoplayer for some while knows that there is a huge comercial interest in having a cheap to use codebase. The thing that matters here is on how we handle this. What do we want to achive ? Yes, world domination is one plan, but we should think more about tomorrow. Currently i see one big problem: the lack of manpower. Somebody needs to write the code, and the amount of people working actively on MPlayer was shrinking for months. The high time of 0.50 where even the devels could barely keep up with the evolution of MPlayer are long over. So we first should think about why and how the development slowed down before we can think about comercial usage of our code. Then what do you want to achive with comercial use of MPlayer ? Just getting sponsoring (ie money, hardware, being paid for working on the code etc) ? Getting "professional" programmers working on MPlayer ? The fame of being the comercialy most used player ? I'm pretty sure that you are not after the money or after hardware. I also dont think that you are after the fame. And getting "professional" programmers working on OSS isnt always something you want. So what is it ? > LICENSE CHANGE: > the code released in g2 peview47 is mostly under gpl. it means > we need to change license, with the agreement of authors. so, > if you are author of some code in g2, and you disagree with the > lgpl, tell us asap, so we can replace your code. > note, that most of the code in g2 core is written by me, or being > copied/inherited from g1. > about plugins/filters: i want the basic ones (like swscaler, > crop/expand, libavcodec, vo_x11 etc) be lgpl too, so they can > be included in core. The rest (like Rich's filters) may be external > gpl plugins, unless their authors accepts lgpl. Be care full with licencese changes of code comming from g1. There are so many peoples code in it, that is nearly impossible to change it's license w/o either ignoring some copyrights or a rewrite. I dont know about the other parts of MPlayer, but the x11 code is so full of different patches that i dont even know how many people worked on it. > MY PLANS: > the first goal is to stabilize/finalize all core APIs. most of them > are OK already, maybe needs some fixes or reviews, and documentation. > in details: >From Rich's flaming and from iive's comments i know that there are still some issues in the APIs, a few that are not easy to solve. > VO: the x11_helper stuff needs to be designed better, Beastd and Faust3 > promised some help me, and Koth too in the past. Dont count on me here. Not that i'm oposed to your plans, but i wont have much time until early October anyways. And after that i will be quite busy with my last year at the university. But i'm sure that beastd will do a much better job than i could have done (i'm just too lazy to do much stuff and a poor programmer anyways) > the driver api (buffer allocation, display etc) stuff is ok imho. > also we should check how to handle "coupled drivers", like > x11+vidix, x11+mga, fbdev+tdfx, vesa+vidix etc. > either the parent driver can handle it, or the vf_vo wrapper can. > both has advs and disadvs. Those are things which need to be spelled out clearly before work is done. > AO: the g1's libao2 should be ok, with changes to use module_t and > do not use globals. > AF: it is not done yet at all, i have some plans but need time to > implement. anyway AF layer can wait, it is not so important. > VF: i plan to use my code from pre47, and don't wait for Rich's > vaporware. and as Rich will probably refuse LGPL anyway, > it should not be a problem :) I thought his api design was basicaly finished and only the actual handling code needed to be done. And know, i dont think it is no problem. The vf layer is the one that glues the most important parts together and the design of the other apis in the video chain depends on it. Not to mention that it will the thing that sets our future limits. > OSD: i've made some drafts and code, have to check it again. i'd like to hear about them. I thought quite a lot about how osd coudl be done, but all i came up with lacked on the side of actualy drawing the osd (i know very little about vf/vo). > DEMUX: should be ok, except that i want to implement framer API, > to handle raw formats like mp3 or mpeg-ps. Afaik Rich mentioned here a problem with handling pts, that it is not always right, dunno what he exactly meant. > VD: should be ok, except the changes required for framer api > AD: depends on AF > CONFIG: layers 0,1 are (almost) ready, layer 2 should be implemented The config stuff is actualy i think is the only one ready for production. > So, as you already could see, i don't count with Iive's and Rich's work > on vo and vf layers. If they have complete, implemented solutions, > i'll check, but i wont wait for them forever and keep reading the > utopistic drafts with mixing multiple video streams etc. > I guess they should work on g3 instead :) But you should count on their work. They are one of the very few people who know a lot about video coding and work on OSS. > The goal for g2 is still the same: make it usable as soon as possible. > In short: no new from-scratch overcomplicated apis, and try to keep > some backward compatibility with g1, so plugins can be ported easily. > Think g2 is a cleaned up, extended g1, and not a new player/editor with > ultimate features. IMHO there need to be a big rewirte, not just a clean up. A clean up can also be done on g1. But the main problem with g1 is it's complexity. I dont know anyone who knows more then 50% of the code. The first thing you should start with is to think about handling this code complexity. Also the whole design should be documented from the beginning in latex/xml/whatever. (this was actualy one of the reasons why i started the mplayer-g2-book) I also strongly suggest the usage of something like doxygen. It really helps to navigate trough undocumented parts of the code. Then g1's code has a lot of design limitations, i dont think you can get around them w/o completely redesigning and reimplementing from scratch. IMHO best would be to start with Rich's idea of a small proper designed core that offers the basic functionality and then extend it until you have what you needed and build everything else around it. Ie exactly like g1 started, just with a proper design behind it and with the lessons learned. > > i expect big flames about this, but please keep it short :) Sorry, couldnt keep it short, this topic is way to important to be discussed in short mails. And as you might see from my not so clear writing stile i am not fully decided yet on what would be best. (beside of the usual sleep deprivation) Actualy for me it resolves around two questions: What do you want to achive? and How do you want to do it ? Especialy the first one needs IMHO a clear answer. Please also note that neither iive, Alex nor Diego have replied to your mail Attila Kinali From arpi at thot.banki.hu Tue Aug 3 16:43:06 2004 From: arpi at thot.banki.hu (Arpi) Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 16:43:06 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040802130402.GA968@pai.kinali.ch> Message-ID: <20040803144306.B8C3738E8B@mail.mplayerhq.hu> Hi, > Is it just me or is there something burning ? hmm, you seems to be very cold to me nowdays... so is this burning ice or what? :) > On Sat, Jul 24, 2004 at 03:41:16PM +0200, Arpi wrote: > > I'LL BE BACK: > > Some of you already know from irc, i'm planning to continue work > > ok mplayer g2 core from september. I left g2 because of the license > > conflict: i don't like gpl, especially for the g2 core, and no, i > > did not change my option, but the license :) > > It would be great to have you back, but spelling out conditions at the > beginning isnt IMHO the right thing. It sounds like we could not do > anything w/o, so please be carefull on how you write these things. g2 is/was my project, i started it from scratch, and later extended by code from g1. so i wonder why should i be very carefull when i came back? maybe i should, if you all do a great work on it since i leave, making it a good application, but the truth is that nobody touched the code since that... this was my main purpose to came back, to finish what i started. > BTW: did you chose this time by purpose ? Knowing that Rich is currently > away ? > I know that when he comes back and reads these mails that the whole > situation will explode. (you both like flaming too much) i didnt know that he is away, remember i did not read the mailing lists. anyway i dont really care of rich's flames^Kopinion... > > NEW LICENSE: > > So i plan to change g2 core license to lgpl. > > So no dual licensing, no commercial licensing and such mess. > > LGPL should be better for a (set of) library(es) anyway, and > > it let commercial users to link it with their optionally > > closedsource UIs, drivers etc. > > We won't get money directly (opposed to original dual licensing plan), > > but as iive said, nobody wants money, so it should not be problem. :) > > Although it can be expected that some commercial users (think of > > settopbox, divx player etc makers) will sponsor some of you to do > > custom development for them. I'm personally not interested much in > > these, but i was asked by several companies in the past year > > (including some quite big ones), so i know there is such interest. > > I think everyone who works on a videoplayer for some while knows that > there is a huge comercial interest in having a cheap to use codebase. > The thing that matters here is on how we handle this. What do we want to > achive ? Yes, world domination is one plan, but we should think more > about tomorrow. Currently i see one big problem: the lack of manpower. > Somebody needs to write the code, and the amount of people working > actively on MPlayer was shrinking for months. The high time of 0.50 > where even the devels could barely keep up with the evolution of MPlayer > are long over. So we first should think about why and how the > development slowed down before we can think about comercial usage of our > code. > Then what do you want to achive with comercial use of MPlayer ? > Just getting sponsoring (ie money, hardware, being paid for working on > the code etc) ? Getting "professional" programmers working on MPlayer ? > The fame of being the comercialy most used player ? > I'm pretty sure that you are not after the money or after hardware. > I also dont think that you are after the fame. And getting > "professional" programmers working on OSS isnt always something > you want. So what is it ? - getting g2 api accepted as 'industial standard for linux/unix video/media' something like oms, and later gstreamer and openquicktime wanted to reach, with no much success. we have to make it available for commercial users, otherwise they wont spend their time developing/porting their codecs, demuxers etc for it. - getting some money/hw/sponsorship to developers who need it to be able to work on the code fulltime or at least more time. to be answered later, now flame only :) > > So, as you already could see, i don't count with Iive's and Rich's work > > on vo and vf layers. If they have complete, implemented solutions, > > i'll check, but i wont wait for them forever and keep reading the > > utopistic drafts with mixing multiple video streams etc. > > I guess they should work on g3 instead :) > > But you should count on their work. They are one of the very few people > who know a lot about video coding and work on OSS. i know. but they are also the reasons why g2 is still not finished. i can't agree any more with them making g2 api capable of every extreme cases including mixing from multiple video sources, backward playback and so on. i think it maybe a goal for g3, but not for g2, or g2 will end up vaporware. > > The goal for g2 is still the same: make it usable as soon as possible. > > In short: no new from-scratch overcomplicated apis, and try to keep > > some backward compatibility with g1, so plugins can be ported easily. > > Think g2 is a cleaned up, extended g1, and not a new player/editor with > > ultimate features. > > IMHO there need to be a big rewirte, not just a clean up. A clean up can g2 is between rewrite and cleanup. some parts rewritten, some cleaned up. > Then g1's code has a lot of design limitations, i dont think you can get > around them w/o completely redesigning and reimplementing from scratch. sure. but i can get around the most important limitations. > IMHO best would be to start with Rich's idea of a small proper designed > core that offers the basic functionality and then extend it until you > have what you needed and build everything else around it. i dont remember rich going for small simple core... he had overcomplicated (hard/impossible to implement) vf ideas. > Ie exactly like g1 started, just with a proper design behind > it and with the lessons learned. g1 was born as a 1,5 hours hack around libmpeg3. later replaced by dvdshow and then libmpeg2, and after some code coped from xmps/avifile to support divx. the whole shit was a bigugly hack. this is what i try to avoid in g2. also i want to avoid the story of oms. it was designed for over 2 years, then they ended up so overcomplicated design than nobody wanted to actually implement, or they implemente dit so buggy that it was unusable. then the project died, and the authors restart from scratch, called xine... > What do you want to achive? working, usable g2 > How do you want to do it ? quickly > Especialy the first one needs IMHO a clear answer. > Please also note that neither iive, Alex nor Diego have replied to your mail so what are the conclusions? they refuse to support me? ok... A'rpi / MPlayer, Astral & ESP-team -- MPlayer's new image: happiness & peace & cosmetics & vmiklos From attila at kinali.ch Wed Aug 4 02:51:46 2004 From: attila at kinali.ch (Attila Kinali) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 09:51:46 +0900 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040803144306.B8C3738E8B@mail.mplayerhq.hu> References: <20040802130402.GA968@pai.kinali.ch> <20040803144306.B8C3738E8B@mail.mplayerhq.hu> Message-ID: <20040804005146.GA1240@pai.kinali.ch> Moin, On Tue, Aug 03, 2004 at 04:43:06PM +0200, Arpi wrote: > > Is it just me or is there something burning ? > > hmm, you seems to be very cold to me nowdays... > so is this burning ice or what? :) Yeah, the temperatures outside sank below 35C... it's getting cold :) > > It would be great to have you back, but spelling out conditions at the > > beginning isnt IMHO the right thing. It sounds like we could not do > > anything w/o, so please be carefull on how you write these things. > > g2 is/was my project, i started it from scratch, and later extended > by code from g1. so i wonder why should i be very carefull when i came > back? maybe i should, if you all do a great work on it since i leave, > making it a good application, but the truth is that nobody touched the > code since that... this was my main purpose to came back, to finish > what i started. Juup...No progress whatsover :( > > BTW: did you chose this time by purpose ? Knowing that Rich is currently > > away ? > > I know that when he comes back and reads these mails that the whole > > situation will explode. (you both like flaming too much) > > i didnt know that he is away, remember i did not read the mailing lists. > anyway i dont really care of rich's flames^Kopinion... Ok, didnt expect something like this from you anyways. > - getting g2 api accepted as 'industial standard for linux/unix video/media' > something like oms, and later gstreamer and openquicktime wanted to > reach, with no much success. > we have to make it available for commercial users, otherwise they wont > spend their time developing/porting their codecs, demuxers etc for it. > - getting some money/hw/sponsorship to developers who need it to be able > to work on the code fulltime or at least more time. Why do you want to get commercial users onto MPlayer ? Just for the sponsoring ? > > > So, as you already could see, i don't count with Iive's and Rich's work > > > on vo and vf layers. If they have complete, implemented solutions, > > > i'll check, but i wont wait for them forever and keep reading the > > > utopistic drafts with mixing multiple video streams etc. > > > I guess they should work on g3 instead :) > > > > But you should count on their work. They are one of the very few people > > who know a lot about video coding and work on OSS. > > i know. but they are also the reasons why g2 is still not finished. > i can't agree any more with them making g2 api capable of every > extreme cases including mixing from multiple video sources, backward > playback and so on. i think it maybe a goal for g3, but not for g2, > or g2 will end up vaporware. ACK > > Then g1's code has a lot of design limitations, i dont think you can get > > around them w/o completely redesigning and reimplementing from scratch. > > sure. but i can get around the most important limitations. I trust your word here :) > > IMHO best would be to start with Rich's idea of a small proper designed > > core that offers the basic functionality and then extend it until you > > have what you needed and build everything else around it. > > i dont remember rich going for small simple core... he had overcomplicated > (hard/impossible to implement) vf ideas. He came up with this idea a few months ago, after you left. He never spelled it out in a mail but we talked a few times about it on irc. > > Ie exactly like g1 started, just with a proper design behind > > it and with the lessons learned. > > g1 was born as a 1,5 hours hack around libmpeg3. > later replaced by dvdshow and then libmpeg2, and after some code > coped from xmps/avifile to support divx. the whole shit was a bigugly > hack. this is what i try to avoid in g2. Juup. > > What do you want to achive? > working, usable g2 > > > How do you want to do it ? > quickly Good.. You can count on my support here. (given that i have the time :( ) > > Especialy the first one needs IMHO a clear answer. > > Please also note that neither iive, Alex nor Diego have replied to your mail > so what are the conclusions? they refuse to support me? ok... Dont know. I just noticed it and was wondering why. I know that at least Diego and iive are reading this list (alex disapears from time to time). Also Michael didnt respond. Attila Kinali From joey at nicewarrior.org Wed Aug 4 03:57:02 2004 From: joey at nicewarrior.org (Joey Parrish) Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 20:57:02 -0500 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040804005146.GA1240@pai.kinali.ch> References: <20040802130402.GA968@pai.kinali.ch> <20040803144306.B8C3738E8B@mail.mplayerhq.hu> <20040804005146.GA1240@pai.kinali.ch> Message-ID: <20040804015702.GD7569@nicewarrior.org> On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 09:51:46AM +0900, Attila Kinali wrote: > > - getting g2 api accepted as 'industial standard for linux/unix video/media' > > something like oms, and later gstreamer and openquicktime wanted to > > reach, with no much success. > > we have to make it available for commercial users, otherwise they wont > > spend their time developing/porting their codecs, demuxers etc for it. > > - getting some money/hw/sponsorship to developers who need it to be able > > to work on the code fulltime or at least more time. > > Why do you want to get commercial users onto MPlayer ? > Just for the sponsoring ? If a hardware player ran MPlayer's code, I would buy it in a heartbeat. (Assuming they aren't stealing from us. :) I love free software. I'd be in a different field if it weren't for free software. But I have no problem with quality commercial products. There aren't enough of them out there. My hardware DVD player actually crashes once in a while, and seeking forward or pausing causes audio desync _every time_. I'd kill for a good G2 and some company to pick it up and use it in a DVD/VCD/MPEG4 player. --Joey -- "There's no blood in your brain? You're one of the lucky ones." --Chad From eclipse7 at gmx.net Wed Aug 4 10:47:23 2004 From: eclipse7 at gmx.net (Alexander Strasser) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 10:47:23 +0200 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040804005146.GA1240@pai.kinali.ch> References: <20040802130402.GA968@pai.kinali.ch> <20040803144306.B8C3738E8B@mail.mplayerhq.hu> <20040804005146.GA1240@pai.kinali.ch> Message-ID: <20040804084723.GA1596@Beastland> On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 09:51:46AM +0900, Attila Kinali wrote: > > - getting g2 api accepted as 'industial standard for linux/unix video/media' > > something like oms, and later gstreamer and openquicktime wanted to > > reach, with no much success. > > we have to make it available for commercial users, otherwise they wont > > spend their time developing/porting their codecs, demuxers etc for it. > > - getting some money/hw/sponsorship to developers who need it to be able > > to work on the code fulltime or at least more time. > > Why do you want to get commercial users onto MPlayer ? > Just for the sponsoring ? Don't forget it be should the movie framework for ALL. Think about computer games and lot's of other out of movie playback applications ( as the main focus is on something else ), that can't publish their code, using MPlayer G2 for movie playback and what not. And to get back to the first point it will never be widly accepted as an industrial standard if it excludes half of the possible uses and users. Alex (beastd) From arpi at thot.banki.hu Wed Aug 4 11:01:05 2004 From: arpi at thot.banki.hu (Arpi) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 11:01:05 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040804005146.GA1240@pai.kinali.ch> Message-ID: <20040804090105.A738038C05@mail.mplayerhq.hu> Hi, > > > It would be great to have you back, but spelling out conditions at the > > > beginning isnt IMHO the right thing. It sounds like we could not do > > > anything w/o, so please be carefull on how you write these things. > > > > g2 is/was my project, i started it from scratch, and later extended > > by code from g1. so i wonder why should i be very carefull when i came > > back? maybe i should, if you all do a great work on it since i leave, > > making it a good application, but the truth is that nobody touched the > > code since that... this was my main purpose to came back, to finish > > what i started. > > Juup...No progress whatsover :( I wont have time before september to actually work on g2 code, i'm just doing some preparation now... > > > BTW: did you chose this time by purpose ? Knowing that Rich is currently > > > away ? > > > I know that when he comes back and reads these mails that the whole > > > situation will explode. (you both like flaming too much) > > > > i didnt know that he is away, remember i did not read the mailing lists. > > anyway i dont really care of rich's flames^Kopinion... > > Ok, didnt expect something like this from you anyways. ok :) > > - getting g2 api accepted as 'industial standard for linux/unix video/media' > > something like oms, and later gstreamer and openquicktime wanted to > > reach, with no much success. > > we have to make it available for commercial users, otherwise they wont > > spend their time developing/porting their codecs, demuxers etc for it. > > - getting some money/hw/sponsorship to developers who need it to be able > > to work on the code fulltime or at least more time. > > Why do you want to get commercial users onto MPlayer ? > Just for the sponsoring ? argh. no, of course. i just want to "legalize" (bad word for this, but i dont know the right one) video playback under non-m$ systems. most of the codec/container makers would port/develop their stuff for non-m$ systems, if they have any chance, ie. any usable API they can use, like quicktike or dshow on win/mac. unfortunatelly they don't have any 'standard api' under unix/linux, so they end up either not supporting unix, or they hack together some useless standalone player (see realplay, bink player etc). we currently support most formats through win32 DLLs run by big hacks in emulators. ok, it's a working (x86-only) workaround, but not a solution. the soultion would be native codecs. and dont tell me to rev.eng. every single dll, because it's also not a solution... btw i wonder why m$ didnt notice this empty space, ie. the lack of a video framework uner unix, they could port their dshow/dmo api and let the companies port their codecs to it. so they could get monopol status over a free os when it comes to video playback :) > > > > So, as you already could see, i don't count with Iive's and Rich's work > > > > on vo and vf layers. If they have complete, implemented solutions, > > > > i'll check, but i wont wait for them forever and keep reading the > > > > utopistic drafts with mixing multiple video streams etc. > > > > I guess they should work on g3 instead :) > > > > > > But you should count on their work. They are one of the very few people > > > who know a lot about video coding and work on OSS. > > > > i know. but they are also the reasons why g2 is still not finished. > > i can't agree any more with them making g2 api capable of every > > extreme cases including mixing from multiple video sources, backward > > playback and so on. i think it maybe a goal for g3, but not for g2, > > or g2 will end up vaporware. > > ACK > > > > > Then g1's code has a lot of design limitations, i dont think you can get > > > around them w/o completely redesigning and reimplementing from scratch. > > > > sure. but i can get around the most important limitations. > > I trust your word here :) > > > > IMHO best would be to start with Rich's idea of a small proper designed > > > core that offers the basic functionality and then extend it until you > > > have what you needed and build everything else around it. > > > > i dont remember rich going for small simple core... he had overcomplicated > > (hard/impossible to implement) vf ideas. > > He came up with this idea a few months ago, after you left. > He never spelled it out in a mail but we talked a few times about it > on irc. could you summarize it ? it's new to me... > > > Ie exactly like g1 started, just with a proper design behind > > > it and with the lessons learned. > > > > g1 was born as a 1,5 hours hack around libmpeg3. > > later replaced by dvdshow and then libmpeg2, and after some code > > coped from xmps/avifile to support divx. the whole shit was a bigugly > > hack. this is what i try to avoid in g2. > > Juup. > > > > > What do you want to achive? > > working, usable g2 > > > > > How do you want to do it ? > > quickly > > Good.. > You can count on my support here. nice. not that you can do much here :) > (given that i have the time :( ) > > > > Especialy the first one needs IMHO a clear answer. > > > Please also note that neither iive, Alex nor Diego have replied to your mail > > so what are the conclusions? they refuse to support me? ok... > > Dont know. I just noticed it and was wondering why. ah. i though they did not answer by purpose, and you know why :) > I know that at least Diego and iive are reading this list (alex > disapears from time to time). Also Michael didnt respond. i talked with them at irc, few days before sent this mail. i had to talk to at least Michael, his code is key point of whole g2. A'rpi / MPlayer, Astral & ESP-team -- MPlayer's new image: happiness & peace & cosmetics & vmiklos From lgb at lgb.hu Wed Aug 4 13:24:15 2004 From: lgb at lgb.hu (=?iso-8859-2?B?R+Fib3IgTOlu4XJ0?=) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 13:24:15 +0200 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040804090105.A738038C05@mail.mplayerhq.hu> References: <20040804005146.GA1240@pai.kinali.ch> <20040804090105.A738038C05@mail.mplayerhq.hu> Message-ID: <20040804112415.GC5973@vega.vega.lgb.hu> On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 11:01:05AM +0200, Arpi wrote: > > Why do you want to get commercial users onto MPlayer ? > > Just for the sponsoring ? > > argh. no, of course. > i just want to "legalize" (bad word for this, but i dont know the right one) > video playback under non-m$ systems. most of the codec/container makers > would port/develop their stuff for non-m$ systems, if they have any > chance, ie. any usable API they can use, like quicktike or dshow on win/mac. > unfortunatelly they don't have any 'standard api' under unix/linux, so they > end up either not supporting unix, or they hack together some useless > standalone player (see realplay, bink player etc). I was criticized several times because of my strong conviction about GPL. Some guys called GPL 'restricitve' and even 'not free enough'. Though I've never understand the point. In my oppinion BSD _IS_ restrictive license because everyone can 'steal' my work (if it's copyrighted under BSD-type license) and use it her own software without the need of releasing the source. GPL is good, because it try to create a community where you can 'insert' new knowledge to and where you can 'get' knowledge from. The 'price' of using GPL based code is to GPLize your code as well, so everybody is happy. HOWEVER. Talking about a media player, it's somewhat similar situation like Linux kernel, where binary-only modules are ALLOWED (non-GPL piece of softwares) in some cases. So, if someone only want to implement a certain codec for mplayer G2 with using the STANDARD codec interface, the codec itself does not need to be GPL software at all. Also, the design (API ...) of the codec interface is documentation which is not licensed like software, so of course it's free to implement a non-GPL player with the same codec API as G2 has. It's important, since if someone write a binary only codec using G2's codec interface, someone other may want to use that codec in her non-GPL software as well. This sounds compilcated, but at this point we're talking about GPLized G2, and even THIS situation allows G2 to become the 'standard codec interface standard' as in its API at least. Sure, other ideas may result in dual-licensed source or even non-GPL, but this require the permit of all of the authors of the mplayer source. I only wanted to point that it's _NOT_ impossible G2 to become some standard even if we're talking only about GPL. Besides I don't read all of the source of softwares I'm using of course, I often feel some fear about binary only kernel modules, codecs, etc, since I've no chance to see the internals (well, you can of course but it's much harder to do that with disassembling etc). I mean, if you can use some standarized codec interface, an anonymous web page would offer free porn videos in (imaginary) PORN format. That page also offers the codec in binary only format for download. But that "codec" may be a trojan. Since it contains excutable code executed by the player when codec is used, it's quite dangerous. So strong control over these binary-only stuffs are needed. And of course there can be binary-only demuxers etc as well, as loadable objects by the player. Some users would be quite happy with the situation where you can download and use a certain codec from a website even with a single click in the GUI. But one of the major reasons about the better security of Linux is that you don't get a screen saver in an e-mail in ELF which can be executed on ANY Linux distro. Several Linux newcomers (does only know about the 'GUI') would happily click on ELF attachment to run, like on an EXE in case of Windows. The only reason she can't do this NOW is that the lower percentage of Linux in desktop market share and the great variant of Linux distros which would require executables linked against different glibc, different libs, patched kernels by different distros etc ... If someone would create a standard which can be used at ABI level it's also very dangerous from the view point of security because of the human factor. The only meaning of my long writing is the need to restrict the possibilities of such codec modules etc to ONLY communicate with the player or so to avoid security problems. > we currently support most formats through win32 DLLs run by big hacks in > emulators. ok, it's a working (x86-only) workaround, but not a solution. > the soultion would be native codecs. > and dont tell me to rev.eng. every single dll, because it's also not a > solution... > > btw i wonder why m$ didnt notice this empty space, ie. the lack of a video > framework uner unix, they could port their dshow/dmo api and let the > companies port their codecs to it. so they could get monopol status over a > free os when it comes to video playback :) IMHO m$ have got problems now. Thay would be able to support Linux and/or UNIX with some media stuffs (and with many others, eg porting Office) to gain some share on the Linux/UNIX market. However they must consider that this move also dismiss some complaint against using Linux/UNIX as desktop: many people using Windows just for the need softwares depending on Windows. At least I guess ... - G?bor (larta'H) From diego at biurrun.de Wed Aug 4 15:53:55 2004 From: diego at biurrun.de (Diego Biurrun) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 15:53:55 +0200 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040803144306.B8C3738E8B@mail.mplayerhq.hu> References: <20040802130402.GA968@pai.kinali.ch> <20040803144306.B8C3738E8B@mail.mplayerhq.hu> Message-ID: <16656.60019.845030.980344@biurrun.de> Arpi writes: > > > On Sat, Jul 24, 2004 at 03:41:16PM +0200, Arpi wrote: > > > BTW: did you chose this time by purpose ? Knowing that Rich is currently > > away ? > > I know that when he comes back and reads these mails that the whole > > situation will explode. (you both like flaming too much) > > i didnt know that he is away, remember i did not read the mailing lists. > anyway i dont really care of rich's flames^Kopinion... Rich is in India until September IIRC. You know that he is very active in the Free Tibet movement and now he is on site, so to speak. > > So what is it ? > > - getting g2 api accepted as 'industial standard for linux/unix video/media' > something like oms, and later gstreamer and openquicktime wanted to > reach, with no much success. > we have to make it available for commercial users, otherwise they wont > spend their time developing/porting their codecs, demuxers etc for it. But why would we want to offer them a cheap framework for their proprietary codecs, drm, etc? What was all the reverse engineering for then? We have come full circle. Our video players are at least as good as their Windows equivalents now and we have support for all major formats. We have started to build new and completely free multimedia formats (Vorbis, snow, ffv1, mkv, nut, etc) so that we can have a complete free multimedia infrastructure in the future. Why do you want to hand the proprietary software makers more rope to hang us with? If they want to inflict their formats and DRM upon the world they should at least have to work hard to do so and we should not have a hand in it. We should instead focus on promoting these formats, fight against patents and DRM and take a more aggressive stance on things like CSS. > - getting some money/hw/sponsorship to developers who need it to be able > to work on the code fulltime or at least more time. I doubt we need a license change for that, see my other mail. > > Please also note that neither iive, Alex nor Diego have replied to your mail > so what are the conclusions? they refuse to support me? ok... No conclusions. I'm standing at the sidelines seeing what happens. Diego From diego at biurrun.de Wed Aug 4 15:54:10 2004 From: diego at biurrun.de (Diego Biurrun) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 15:54:10 +0200 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040804090105.A738038C05@mail.mplayerhq.hu> References: <20040804005146.GA1240@pai.kinali.ch> <20040804090105.A738038C05@mail.mplayerhq.hu> Message-ID: <16656.60034.65459.716247@biurrun.de> Arpi writes: > > > Why do you want to get commercial users onto MPlayer ? > > Just for the sponsoring ? > > argh. no, of course. > i just want to "legalize" (bad word for this, but i dont know the right one) > video playback under non-m$ systems. most of the codec/container makers > would port/develop their stuff for non-m$ systems, if they have any > chance, ie. any usable API they can use, like quicktike or dshow on win/mac. > unfortunatelly they don't have any 'standard api' under unix/linux, so they > end up either not supporting unix, or they hack together some useless > standalone player (see realplay, bink player etc). Hmm. > we currently support most formats through win32 DLLs run by big hacks in > emulators. ok, it's a working (x86-only) workaround, but not a solution. > the soultion would be native codecs. > and dont tell me to rev.eng. every single dll, because it's also not a > solution... Why not? We are really catching up through reverse engineering. > > I know that at least Diego and iive are reading this list (alex > > disapears from time to time). Also Michael didnt respond. > > i talked with them at irc, few days before sent this mail. > i had to talk to at least Michael, his code is key point of whole g2. Michael did not say anything yet and if I am not mistaken he is not overly happy with the FFmpeg license change to LGPL. Diego From diego at biurrun.de Wed Aug 4 15:54:04 2004 From: diego at biurrun.de (Diego Biurrun) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 15:54:04 +0200 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040804084723.GA1596@Beastland> References: <20040802130402.GA968@pai.kinali.ch> <20040803144306.B8C3738E8B@mail.mplayerhq.hu> <20040804005146.GA1240@pai.kinali.ch> <20040804084723.GA1596@Beastland> Message-ID: <16656.60028.748999.287379@biurrun.de> Alexander Strasser writes: > On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 09:51:46AM +0900, Attila Kinali wrote: > > > - getting g2 api accepted as 'industial standard for linux/unix video/media' > > > something like oms, and later gstreamer and openquicktime wanted to > > > reach, with no much success. > > > we have to make it available for commercial users, otherwise they wont > > > spend their time developing/porting their codecs, demuxers etc for it. > > > - getting some money/hw/sponsorship to developers who need it to be able > > > to work on the code fulltime or at least more time. > > > > Why do you want to get commercial users onto MPlayer ? > > Just for the sponsoring ? > Don't forget it be should the movie framework for ALL. Think about computer > games and lot's of other out of movie playback applications ( as the > main focus is on something else ), that can't publish their code, using > MPlayer G2 for movie playback and what not. Games could use GPL MPlayer G2 for movie playback without having to publish their code. > And to get back to the first > point it will never be widly accepted as an industrial standard if it excludes > half of the possible uses and users. But what if half of the possible uses are bad (DRM, etc)? Diego From eclipse7 at gmx.net Wed Aug 4 16:26:47 2004 From: eclipse7 at gmx.net (Alexander Strasser) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 16:26:47 +0200 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <16656.60028.748999.287379@biurrun.de> References: <20040802130402.GA968@pai.kinali.ch> <20040803144306.B8C3738E8B@mail.mplayerhq.hu> <20040804005146.GA1240@pai.kinali.ch> <20040804084723.GA1596@Beastland> <16656.60028.748999.287379@biurrun.de> Message-ID: <20040804142647.GA5193@Beastland> On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 03:54:04PM +0200, Diego Biurrun wrote: > Alexander Strasser writes: > > > Why do you want to get commercial users onto MPlayer ? > > > Just for the sponsoring ? > > Don't forget it be should the movie framework for ALL. Think about computer > > games and lot's of other out of movie playback applications ( as the > > main focus is on something else ), that can't publish their code, using > > MPlayer G2 for movie playback and what not. > > Games could use GPL MPlayer G2 for movie playback without having to > publish their code. I don't know what you mean. I see no way, one can link to GPL code in Games which are proprietary. At least not legally AFAIK. "This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Lesser General Public License instead of this License." If you mean starting just another process... this is shitty though possible. But guaranteed to not be used ( by many people and bigger projects ). > > And to get back to the first > > point it will never be widly accepted as an industrial standard if it excludes > > half of the possible uses and users. > > But what if half of the possible uses are bad (DRM, etc)? The possible uses don't matter, see above. For all means for all. Alex (beastd) From diego at biurrun.de Wed Aug 4 16:35:01 2004 From: diego at biurrun.de (Diego Biurrun) Date: Wed, 04 Aug 2004 14:35:01 -0000 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040724134116.D24C238AEF@mail.mplayerhq.hu> References: <20040724134116.D24C238AEF@mail.mplayerhq.hu> Message-ID: Arpi writes: > > I'LL BE BACK: Who are you? Terminator 4 - Return of the Coders Hasta la vista bits! ;-) OK, enough cheesy jokes for today, SCNR. > Some of you already know from irc, i'm planning to continue work > ok mplayer g2 core from september. I left g2 because of the license > conflict: i don't like gpl, especially for the g2 core, and no, i > did not change my option, but the license :) The main question, though, is: Which license will attract the highest number of (quality) developers in the long run. You won't be developing it alone after all. IMNSHO there is a clear preference among developers: BSD < LGPL < GPL Just so there is no misunderstanding: Of course there are BSD devs and people who prefer BSD over the others (same for LGPL), but if you make statistics you will come up with the above relationship. This may not be the case for proprietary software developers and their bosses, but it surely is the case for free software (open source whatever you want to call it) developers. Just compare the amount of development done on MPlayer by the former and the latter. I doubt we will see this change. > NEW LICENSE: > So i plan to change g2 core license to lgpl. > So no dual licensing, no commercial licensing and such mess. > LGPL should be better for a (set of) library(es) anyway, and > it let commercial users to link it with their optionally > closedsource UIs, drivers etc. > We won't get money directly (opposed to original dual licensing plan), > but as iive said, nobody wants money, so it should not be problem. :) I much prefer dual licensing to LGPL (and I was not against dual licensing). IMO this is the worst of both worlds. We don't get the funds that might come in through dual licensing and we don't have the protection and patch feedback offered through the GPL. > Although it can be expected that some commercial users (think of > settopbox, divx player etc makers) will sponsor some of you to do > custom development for them. I'm personally not interested much in > these, but i was asked by several companies in the past year > (including some quite big ones), so i know there is such interest. We've heard many rumours about that, but no backing at all. Is it a secret? Did you sign some sort of NDA? I just don't believe in companies adopting LGPL MPlayer and contributing back useful things. The companies that want LGPL MPlayer are the ones not interested in contributing back. Why should we be interested in them or make life easier for them? > WHY NOT GPL? > GPL is just too limited for the purpose of g2 core. Even Michael and > Alex agreed on irc. We need some license which allows at least linking > to plugins and UIs under different (even closed source) license. > Why? Think of a 3rd party company developing codecs (like 3ivx, On2 etc) > they want to make their codecs available for linux (and other unix) > platforms natively (no DLL hack), but they cannot open the source, > or they can but they dont want to put it under GPL. What license would they put it under? BSD? Surely not.. > The second reason is commercial users, ie settopbox makers etc. > I was contacted by several companies in the past, with very different > targets of use. It ranges from driving 16000x4000 pixel giant displays > (using industrial 16-head vga cards), to driving 3-d hologram projectors, > or to be used in advertisement display kiosks in 24/7 for months without > a reboot/restart. They all need very stable linux-based player core. > And they all need less restrictive (than gpl) license. Why would you need such a thing to drive such a kiosk? What's the difference between a video and a browser kiosk? I have seen browser kiosks running Linux + Mozilla. I mean why would they need a different license? Again, please put your money where your mouth is, so to say, and tell us which company offered what. We have been talking to companies at LinuxTag that wanted to sponsor GPL MPlayer and even G2 development. It's not true that you cannot get corporate backing with the GPL. The city of M?nster wants to become the most wired city in the world (they have fiber all over already) and offer high performance WLAN and content streaming for its citizens. They want to build all the infrastructure on free software and release everything they create as GPL. They were looking at MPlayer for the client part of the streaming solution. Then there was another company that wants to sponsor G2 development as a backend for a VJ (video jockey) application. I forgot their name and apparently lost their damn business card, but Alex should have it. > Since these applications are far from as-is use, they usually need > custom plugins, uis, and they are willing to sponsor us to do that. > (note to Rich and friends: sponsoring not only means money, it may mean > added code/patches, hardware to developers, new server and so on) Please explain in more detail why and how company X would benefit from an LGPL G2 and - more importantly - how WE (the developers and the whole community) would benefit from providing such a thing. Obviously all of us love giving away their work, but not under any condition. In your model, what is the difference to free labor? Why are you interested in making things easy for companies that are not interested in contributing back? > LICENSE CHANGE: > the code released in g2 peview47 is mostly under gpl. it means > we need to change license, with the agreement of authors. so, > if you are author of some code in g2, and you disagree with the > lgpl, tell us asap, so we can replace your code. > note, that most of the code in g2 core is written by me, or being > copied/inherited from g1. Since G1 has been written by so many people I think it will be extremely hard to change its license and even to rid G2 of G1 code. > VF: i plan to use my code from pre47, and don't wait for Rich's > vaporware. and as Rich will probably refuse LGPL anyway, > it should not be a problem :) >From talking to Rich I know that he is opposed to LGPL. > i expect big flames about this, but please keep it short :) I tried my very best. BTW, I sincerely do not intend to start a huge flamewar, I just don't understand your motivation and cannot understand your reasoning. Diego From arpi at thot.banki.hu Wed Aug 4 17:10:21 2004 From: arpi at thot.banki.hu (Arpi) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 17:10:21 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <16656.60028.748999.287379@biurrun.de> Message-ID: <20040804151021.E0E4E38D9D@mail.mplayerhq.hu> Hi, > Alexander Strasser writes: > > On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 09:51:46AM +0900, Attila Kinali wrote: > > > > - getting g2 api accepted as 'industial standard for linux/unix video/media' > > > > something like oms, and later gstreamer and openquicktime wanted to > > > > reach, with no much success. > > > > we have to make it available for commercial users, otherwise they wont > > > > spend their time developing/porting their codecs, demuxers etc for it. > > > > - getting some money/hw/sponsorship to developers who need it to be able > > > > to work on the code fulltime or at least more time. > > > > > > Why do you want to get commercial users onto MPlayer ? > > > Just for the sponsoring ? > > Don't forget it be should the movie framework for ALL. Think about computer > > games and lot's of other out of movie playback applications ( as the > > main focus is on something else ), that can't publish their code, using > > MPlayer G2 for movie playback and what not. > > Games could use GPL MPlayer G2 for movie playback without having to > publish their code. since when its' allowed to link gpl library to non-gpl (closedsrc) app??? > > And to get back to the first > > point it will never be widly accepted as an industrial standard if it excludes > > half of the possible uses and users. > > But what if half of the possible uses are bad (DRM, etc)? it's question of viewpoint. and the topic of drm is a very good example of this: what happens to drm contents on non-m$ systems: a, unplayable b, some day being cracked and so playable illegally (css...) c, playable legally using closedsrc plugin (here g2 comes in the picture) d, playable using broken crap full-closedsrc app made by drm maker (i vote for b, but until its done, c is still better than d or a) ok i see your and rich's and rms' viewpoint of 'drm sux', i agree too, but you simply cannot get drm 'erased' from the world, it will be used and used even more in the future, that on-demand audio/video broadcasting gets even more popular. you may fight against it, but it will reach nothing, except that you wont be able to play these contents. A'rpi / MPlayer, Astral & ESP-team -- MPlayer's new image: happiness & peace & cosmetics & vmiklos From diego at biurrun.de Wed Aug 4 17:11:02 2004 From: diego at biurrun.de (Diego Biurrun) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 17:11:02 +0200 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040804142647.GA5193@Beastland> References: <20040802130402.GA968@pai.kinali.ch> <20040803144306.B8C3738E8B@mail.mplayerhq.hu> <20040804005146.GA1240@pai.kinali.ch> <20040804084723.GA1596@Beastland> <16656.60028.748999.287379@biurrun.de> <20040804142647.GA5193@Beastland> Message-ID: <16656.64646.591178.770080@biurrun.de> Alexander Strasser writes: > On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 03:54:04PM +0200, Diego Biurrun wrote: > > Alexander Strasser writes: > > > > Why do you want to get commercial users onto MPlayer ? > > > > Just for the sponsoring ? > > > Don't forget it be should the movie framework for ALL. Think about computer > > > games and lot's of other out of movie playback applications ( as the > > > main focus is on something else ), that can't publish their code, using > > > MPlayer G2 for movie playback and what not. > > > > Games could use GPL MPlayer G2 for movie playback without having to > > publish their code. > > If you mean starting just another process... this is shitty though > possible. But guaranteed to not be used ( by many people and bigger > projects ). Why shouldn't a game start another process/thread to play a movie? > > > And to get back to the first > > > point it will never be widly accepted as an industrial standard if it excludes > > > half of the possible uses and users. > > > > But what if half of the possible uses are bad (DRM, etc)? > The possible uses don't matter, see above. For all means for all. Sure it matters what things are used for! What's next? Fabricating guns and claiming it's the people that misuse them and you've got nothing to do with the killing? Movie players (even DRMed ones) and guns are not the same, of course, but I hope you get the drift of my reasoning. People are responsible for their actions. If you want it to be for all, you use the BSD license, not the LGPL. The question is why you would want to make it for all people. There should be something you get out of it and the good should outweigh the bad. Diego From gabucino at mplayerhq.hu Wed Aug 4 17:40:20 2004 From: gabucino at mplayerhq.hu (Gabucino) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 17:40:20 +0200 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <16656.64646.591178.770080@biurrun.de> References: <20040802130402.GA968@pai.kinali.ch> <20040803144306.B8C3738E8B@mail.mplayerhq.hu> <20040804005146.GA1240@pai.kinali.ch> <20040804084723.GA1596@Beastland> <16656.60028.748999.287379@biurrun.de> <20040804142647.GA5193@Beastland> <16656.64646.591178.770080@biurrun.de> Message-ID: <20040804154020.GA25226@mail.banki.hu> Diego Biurrun wrote: > > > But what if half of the possible uses are bad (DRM, etc)? > > The possible uses don't matter, see above. For all means for all. > Sure it matters what things are used for! What's next? Fabricating > guns and claiming it's the people that misuse them and you've got > nothing to do with the killing? Very very bad reasoning. Will you sue knife-makers too, because knives can also be used for killing like, newborn babies? -- Gabucino From eclipse7 at gmx.net Wed Aug 4 17:41:07 2004 From: eclipse7 at gmx.net (Alexander Strasser) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 17:41:07 +0200 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <16656.64646.591178.770080@biurrun.de> References: <20040802130402.GA968@pai.kinali.ch> <20040803144306.B8C3738E8B@mail.mplayerhq.hu> <20040804005146.GA1240@pai.kinali.ch> <20040804084723.GA1596@Beastland> <16656.60028.748999.287379@biurrun.de> <20040804142647.GA5193@Beastland> <16656.64646.591178.770080@biurrun.de> Message-ID: <20040804154107.GA6870@Beastland> On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 05:11:02PM +0200, Diego Biurrun wrote: > Alexander Strasser writes: > > On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 03:54:04PM +0200, Diego Biurrun wrote: > > > Games could use GPL MPlayer G2 for movie playback without having to > > > publish their code. > > > > If you mean starting just another process... this is shitty though > > possible. But guaranteed to not be used ( by many people and bigger > > projects ). > > Why shouldn't a game start another process/thread to play a movie? They won't. It will always be some sort of big hack. Think about it. > > > > And to get back to the first > > > > point it will never be widly accepted as an industrial standard if it excludes > > > > half of the possible uses and users. > > > > > > But what if half of the possible uses are bad (DRM, etc)? > > The possible uses don't matter, see above. For all means for all. > > Sure it matters what things are used for! What's next? Fabricating > guns and claiming it's the people that misuse them and you've got > nothing to do with the killing? No comment. > Movie players (even DRMed ones) and guns are not the same, of course, Damn right! > but I hope you get the drift of my reasoning. People are responsible > for their actions. Yes. > If you want it to be for all, you use the BSD license, not the LGPL. No, the framework is there for all. But still it's code must be protected. > The question is why you would want to make it for all people. There > should be something you get out of it and the good should outweigh the > bad. Yes a long needed good movie framework. Alex (beastd) From arpi at thot.banki.hu Wed Aug 4 17:59:16 2004 From: arpi at thot.banki.hu (Arpi) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 17:59:16 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... Message-ID: <20040804155916.93B2638DBD@mail.mplayerhq.hu> Hi, > Arpi writes: > > > > I'LL BE BACK: > > Who are you? Sorry, I don't remember my name. Yesterday i wrote it down to a paper, but i dont remember where that paper is... > Terminator 4 - Return of the Coders > > Hasta la vista bits! > > ;-) > > OK, enough cheesy jokes for today, SCNR. thanks :) > > Some of you already know from irc, i'm planning to continue work > > ok mplayer g2 core from september. I left g2 because of the license > > conflict: i don't like gpl, especially for the g2 core, and no, i > > did not change my option, but the license :) > > The main question, though, is: Which license will attract the highest > number of (quality) developers in the long run. You won't be > developing it alone after all. > > IMNSHO there is a clear preference among developers: > > BSD < LGPL < GPL > > Just so there is no misunderstanding: Of course there are BSD devs and > people who prefer BSD over the others (same for LGPL), but if you make > statistics you will come up with the above relationship. This may not > be the case for proprietary software developers and their bosses, but > it surely is the case for free software (open source whatever you want > to call it) developers. Just compare the amount of development done > on MPlayer by the former and the latter. I doubt we will see this > change. I cannot agree here. First of all, do a quick search for libraries on freshmeat, and re-count licenses. I have a bet that lgpl will win it. Probably you didnt realized yet that g2 is more like a library framework, than a standalone player app (like g1). Also. I think that quailty developers don't really care of the license, they care more of the use of their work, ie if it can be used for more thing it's better. mplayer g1 was not gpl for the first 2 years, and it was developed imho more quickly (by less people but they worked a lot on it, not just contributing 1-2 small patches) than in teh past 2 years. So, maybe you're right that gpl app will get more small contributors, but it's not true that more ppl will work fulltime (or at least as their primary project for longer time period) on it if it's gpl. It's the reverse imho. Also, you may say that GPL will protect us from the evil, from stealing. Hey, where did you sleep in the past 4 years then? mplayer was stolen by many projects and companies, we don't even know about most of them. we know a few, but couldnt really do anything against them, think of warpvision, xbox mp or the latest kiss issues. Ok i know you're working on kiss problem, but i dont expect much from it. I also know that LGPL still won't protect us, but as it gives more freedom to users, they will more likely support us, instead of silently stealing the code. Or i'm just idealist, just like all you GPL fans, just a bit different way ;) I think that widely used code is more important goal, than an 100% rms-compatible freedom. > > NEW LICENSE: > > So i plan to change g2 core license to lgpl. > > So no dual licensing, no commercial licensing and such mess. > > LGPL should be better for a (set of) library(es) anyway, and > > it let commercial users to link it with their optionally > > closedsource UIs, drivers etc. > > We won't get money directly (opposed to original dual licensing plan), > > but as iive said, nobody wants money, so it should not be problem. :) > > I much prefer dual licensing to LGPL (and I was not against dual > licensing). > > IMO this is the worst of both worlds. We don't get the funds that > might come in through dual licensing and we don't have the protection > and patch feedback offered through the GPL. probably time to read lgpl then. it still guarantees the patch feedback, just like gpl, thge only difference to gpl is that lgpl allows code linking to non-gpl apps. i also liked dual licensing, but i gave up on it for 2 reasons: - everyone refused it - selling license is a very big problem, needs a company, needs solving patent issues (patent holders can sue a company) - how to share the money between the developers? now the code will be lgpl, and if a company needs a feature, they can choose and hire a developer to do the modifications or (help to) implement the wanted plugin for them. and dont say it's dream, i do know several companies willing to do so. and it's not secret: i think that a big part of g2 plugins will be implemented by developers sponsored by these companies note, that the case of g1 was simpler, it was the first usable player, the first player supporting filters etc. so most opensource developers made trheir code to g1. but in case of g2, there is no such priority. if we want ppl to work on g2, we need to pay them, or work for years until g2 gets to a state where it's better than g1. i realized that nearly no one was interested in g2 development, even while it was gpl. and i cannot do all of it alone... > > Although it can be expected that some commercial users (think of > > settopbox, divx player etc makers) will sponsor some of you to do > > custom development for them. I'm personally not interested much in > > these, but i was asked by several companies in the past year > > (including some quite big ones), so i know there is such interest. > > We've heard many rumours about that, but no backing at all. Is it a > secret? Did you sign some sort of NDA? no, i dont sign such things. actually i dont sign anything :) anyway i'm not sure if i'm allowed to tell you, as they all asked me in private, but for a quick list: ESS-net (makers of lottery terminals over europe, inetesred in g2 core for their nextgen firmware), Antenna Hungaria (for their dvb receiver settopbox), some slovakian cable tv (i dont know their name) for their video conversion/archival purposes, dream media (advertisement projector boxes) and so on. believe me, it's not fake. > I just don't believe in companies adopting LGPL MPlayer and i dont care if you believe or not. as you are not a g2 developer, are you? > contributing back useful things. The companies that want LGPL MPlayer > are the ones not interested in contributing back. Why should we be it's not a question of interest. they have to contribute back if they change core. and if they make closedsrc plugins, we can still use them. > interested in them or make life easier for them? because of they can do (or pay someone to do) many things for us, speeding up the development and reducing new-codec support time. > > WHY NOT GPL? > > GPL is just too limited for the purpose of g2 core. Even Michael and > > Alex agreed on irc. We need some license which allows at least linking > > to plugins and UIs under different (even closed source) license. > > Why? Think of a 3rd party company developing codecs (like 3ivx, On2 etc) > > they want to make their codecs available for linux (and other unix) > > platforms natively (no DLL hack), but they cannot open the source, > > or they can but they dont want to put it under GPL. > > What license would they put it under? BSD? Surely not.. dunno > > The second reason is commercial users, ie settopbox makers etc. > > I was contacted by several companies in the past, with very different > > targets of use. It ranges from driving 16000x4000 pixel giant displays > > (using industrial 16-head vga cards), to driving 3-d hologram projectors, > > or to be used in advertisement display kiosks in 24/7 for months without > > a reboot/restart. They all need very stable linux-based player core. > > And they all need less restrictive (than gpl) license. > > Why would you need such a thing to drive such a kiosk? What's the > difference between a video and a browser kiosk? I have seen browser > kiosks running Linux + Mozilla. I mean why would they need a > different license? because of using special hardware which needs nda, or non-gpl libraries? because of using their special player ui designed for that kiosk, which they dont want to release under gpl? (becase then its bugs could be find easier and the kiosks could be cracked?) > Again, please put your money where your mouth is, so to say, and tell > us which company offered what. I dont know the company name, just a contact person i was asked by. i can give his address & phone to you in private if you are interested. > We have been talking to companies at LinuxTag that wanted to sponsor > GPL MPlayer and even G2 development. It's not true that you cannot > get corporate backing with the GPL. which companies? put your hand where your mounth is, or tell us facts. > The city of M?nster wants to become the most wired city in the world > (they have fiber all over already) and offer high performance WLAN and > content streaming for its citizens. They want to build all the > infrastructure on free software and release everything they create as > GPL. They were looking at MPlayer for the client part of the > streaming solution. and why would they sponsor us? > Then there was another company that wants to sponsor G2 development as > a backend for a VJ (video jockey) application. I forgot their name > and apparently lost their damn business card, but Alex should have it. and their VJ app would be also GPL ? i really doubt it. and if it wont be GPL, then either they cant link GPL g2 libs, or they will call g2 cli as child process which plain sucks and so they wont. > > Since these applications are far from as-is use, they usually need > > custom plugins, uis, and they are willing to sponsor us to do that. > > (note to Rich and friends: sponsoring not only means money, it may mean > > added code/patches, hardware to developers, new server and so on) > > Please explain in more detail why and how company X would benefit from > an LGPL G2 and - more importantly - how WE (the developers and the > whole community) would benefit from providing such a thing. Obviously > all of us love giving away their work, but not under any condition. > In your model, what is the difference to free labor? Why are you > interested in making things easy for companies that are not interested > in contributing back? how many times you'll ask this again? i've explained already many times. anyway you'd better getting Michael against lgpl, or i'll end up forking and making the whole g2 stuff alone, together with ppl sponsored by these "secret" companies. but it will be closedsource then :))) so, again, and last time: if i would know that many ppl interested in gpl g2 development, i would not care. but it seems almost no one is interested, so i increase the interest by changing the license. even if you think gpl is more popular, it isnt. also, if you do simple math: lgpl allows linking to gpl and other license apps, gpl allows linking to gpl only. it alone means much more users of lgpl libraries. and more users mean more developers too. > > LICENSE CHANGE: > > the code released in g2 peview47 is mostly under gpl. it means > > we need to change license, with the agreement of authors. so, > > if you are author of some code in g2, and you disagree with the > > lgpl, tell us asap, so we can replace your code. > > note, that most of the code in g2 core is written by me, or being > > copied/inherited from g1. > > Since G1 has been written by so many people I think it will be > extremely hard to change its license and even to rid G2 of G1 code. we'll see. also, you know that i personally dont give a shit to the licenses. i was developing g1 without any license for years. and it worked, it was contriuted, and it was used by many people. i'm ready to start doing things as it's lgpl, an dif somebody comes with his complaints then we'll replace his code. simple, eh? anyway already many ppl answered that they all agree with lgpl. nobody rejected it yet. and i cant see any reason to reject it, unless you're gpl/rms fanatic. > > VF: i plan to use my code from pre47, and don't wait for Rich's > > vaporware. and as Rich will probably refuse LGPL anyway, > > it should not be a problem :) > > >From talking to Rich I know that he is opposed to LGPL. > > > i expect big flames about this, but please keep it short :) > > I tried my very best. you're slowly improving... > BTW, I sincerely do not intend to start a huge flamewar, I just don't > understand your motivation and cannot understand your reasoning. sorry, i cannot understand your inability to understand it :) A'rpi / MPlayer, Astral & ESP-team -- MPlayer's new image: happiness & peace & cosmetics & vmiklos From diego at biurrun.de Wed Aug 4 18:41:05 2004 From: diego at biurrun.de (Diego Biurrun) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 18:41:05 +0200 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040804151021.E0E4E38D9D@mail.mplayerhq.hu> References: <16656.60028.748999.287379@biurrun.de> <20040804151021.E0E4E38D9D@mail.mplayerhq.hu> Message-ID: <16657.4513.504622.938264@biurrun.de> Arpi writes: > > > Alexander Strasser writes: > > > Don't forget it be should the movie framework for ALL. Think about computer > > > games and lot's of other out of movie playback applications ( as the > > > main focus is on something else ), that can't publish their code, using > > > MPlayer G2 for movie playback and what not. > > > > Games could use GPL MPlayer G2 for movie playback without having to > > publish their code. > > since when its' allowed to link gpl library to non-gpl (closedsrc) app??? I know that it's not allowed. But a game doesn't have to link to MPlayer, it could just use e.g. slave mode or start a new process or thread. > > > And to get back to the first > > > point it will never be widly accepted as an industrial standard if it excludes > > > half of the possible uses and users. > > > > But what if half of the possible uses are bad (DRM, etc)? > > it's question of viewpoint. > and the topic of drm is a very good example of this: > what happens to drm contents on non-m$ systems: > a, unplayable > b, some day being cracked and so playable illegally (css...) > c, playable legally using closedsrc plugin (here g2 comes in the picture) > d, playable using broken crap full-closedsrc app made by drm maker > > (i vote for b, but until its done, c is still better than d or a) Good point. I vote for b and I would contest that this is illegal, but this takes us away from the topic at hand. I tend to prefer c over a or d, but c does have the drawback that it will slow down people working on b. It is a fact that "pain" speeds up development. Closed codecs work with DLL loaders, so no big problem. BTW, have you thought about the possibility that G2 would still be avoided because it could easily be used to transcode that closed content into free formats? MEncoder can encode everything that MPlayer can play. Microsoft will have no motivation write plugins for a player that will almost instantly convert WMV13 to snow. > ok i see your and rich's and rms' viewpoint of 'drm sux', i agree too, > but you simply cannot get drm 'erased' from the world, it will be used > and used even more in the future, that on-demand audio/video broadcasting > gets even more popular. you may fight against it, but it will reach > nothing, except that you wont be able to play these contents. Don't be too pessimistic, so far DRM is nowhere except in some CEO's dreams. Let us first see how the patent issue works out, these things go hand in hand. The EU is going to vote on sw patents in september. Maybe we can discuss our options again after that. Anyway, DRM cannot work, so don't fear it tooo much. Any encryption scheme where the receiver and the attacker are the same person is bound to fail. In this context Cory Doctorow's talk to M$ employees "Microsoft Research DRM talk" is quite enlightening (and entertaining) as well: http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt Diego From FabianFranz at gmx.de Wed Aug 4 18:40:31 2004 From: FabianFranz at gmx.de (Fabian Franz) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 18:40:31 +0200 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040804155916.93B2638DBD@mail.mplayerhq.hu> References: <20040804155916.93B2638DBD@mail.mplayerhq.hu> Message-ID: <200408041840.31061.FabianFranz@gmx.de> [summary: LGPL vs. GPL] I agree that LGPL is better for libraries. I think GNU & RMS had a reason to create it. And those are the same people, that created GPL. Think about it! So its imho the right choice for a media player _framework_ based on libraries. And its a good choice by A'rpi imho. Where is the difference between a _bad_ company using gcc and other software to produce DRM- / other bad Software or a Software that uses LGPLed libraries? I see no difference. If someone is evil, they'll always find a way. I wish the "Next Generation Multimedia Framework" good luck! :-) Btw: Which advantage would GPL have over LGPL for others? cu Fabian From Reimar.Doeffinger at stud.uni-karlsruhe.de Wed Aug 4 20:07:42 2004 From: Reimar.Doeffinger at stud.uni-karlsruhe.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Reimar_D=F6ffinger?=) Date: Wed, 04 Aug 2004 20:07:42 +0200 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <16657.4513.504622.938264@biurrun.de> References: <16656.60028.748999.287379@biurrun.de> <20040804151021.E0E4E38D9D@mail.mplayerhq.hu> <16657.4513.504622.938264@biurrun.de> Message-ID: <411125EE.2050606@stud.uni-karlsruhe.de> Hi, > Anyway, DRM cannot work, so don't fear it tooo much. Any encryption > scheme where the receiver and the attacker are the same person is > bound to fail. In this context Cory Doctorow's talk to M$ employees > "Microsoft Research DRM talk" is quite enlightening (and entertaining) > as well: Well, it works in the same way as Microsoft's other "security" things: by obfuscation. That can "work" as long as you can invest a lot more on further obfucscation than anyone else on trying to understand. Although from a theoretical standpoint DRM is a real big joke. On thinking twice it is from any standpoint, and from most a really bad one... Greetings, Reimar D?ffinger From barbieri at gmail.com Wed Aug 4 20:13:50 2004 From: barbieri at gmail.com (Gustavo Barbieri) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 15:13:50 -0300 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <200408041840.31061.FabianFranz@gmx.de> References: <20040804155916.93B2638DBD@mail.mplayerhq.hu> <200408041840.31061.FabianFranz@gmx.de> Message-ID: <9ef20ef304080411137cacb98a@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 4 Aug 2004 18:40:31 +0200, Fabian Franz wrote: > [summary: LGPL vs. GPL] > > I agree that LGPL is better for libraries. > > I think GNU & RMS had a reason to create it. > > And those are the same people, that created GPL. > > Think about it! > > So its imho the right choice for a media player _framework_ based on > libraries. And its a good choice by A'rpi imho. I agree with you both. I have almost no code to g1 (just a basic AF filter), so Arpi can exclude my opinion... eh eh... > Where is the difference between a _bad_ company using gcc and other software > to produce DRM- / other bad Software or a Software that uses LGPLed > libraries? > > I see no difference. If someone is evil, they'll always find a way. Oh yeah, this is real :( > I wish the "Next Generation Multimedia Framework" good luck! :-) Me too... I hope I could contribute something, but I'm not a multimedia expert and need some pointers and TODO lists to be done... until them I'm waiting for your code! :) -- Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri --------------------------------------- Computer Engineer 2001 - UNICAMP GPSL - Grupo Pro Software Livre Cell..: +55 (19) 9165 8010 Jabber: gsbarbieri at jabber.org ICQ#: 17249123 GPG: 0xB640E1A2 @ wwwkeys.pgp.net From lgb at lgb.hu Wed Aug 4 21:32:00 2004 From: lgb at lgb.hu (=?iso-8859-2?B?R+Fib3IgTOlu4XJ0?=) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 21:32:00 +0200 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040724134116.D24C238AEF@mail.mplayerhq.hu> References: <20040724134116.D24C238AEF@mail.mplayerhq.hu> Message-ID: <20040804193200.GB31903@vega.vega.lgb.hu> Re, First of all, I don't remember what was written by me in G1 (not too much I'm afraid ...) but I permit the license change to LGPL if G2 contains any of them. I'm still strongly feels that GPL is the right thing (TM), but religion and advance often conflicts ... And the goal is important now. Sorry, I've got 9600baud 'fast' connection at this moment I don't try to delete the rest of the quoted mail, so ignore from HERE. On Sat, Jul 24, 2004 at 03:41:16PM +0200, Arpi wrote: > Hi, > > I'LL BE BACK: > Some of you already know from irc, i'm planning to continue work > ok mplayer g2 core from september. I left g2 because of the license > conflict: i don't like gpl, especially for the g2 core, and no, i > did not change my option, but the license :) > > NEW LICENSE: > So i plan to change g2 core license to lgpl. > So no dual licensing, no commercial licensing and such mess. > LGPL should be better for a (set of) library(es) anyway, and > it let commercial users to link it with their optionally > closedsource UIs, drivers etc. > We won't get money directly (opposed to original dual licensing plan), > but as iive said, nobody wants money, so it should not be problem. :) > Although it can be expected that some commercial users (think of > settopbox, divx player etc makers) will sponsor some of you to do > custom development for them. I'm personally not interested much in > these, but i was asked by several companies in the past year > (including some quite big ones), so i know there is such interest. > > WHY NOT GPL? > GPL is just too limited for the purpose of g2 core. Even Michael and > Alex agreed on irc. We need some license which allows at least linking > to plugins and UIs under different (even closed source) license. > Why? Think of a 3rd party company developing codecs (like 3ivx, On2 etc) > they want to make their codecs available for linux (and other unix) > platforms natively (no DLL hack), but they cannot open the source, > or they can but they dont want to put it under GPL. > The second reason is commercial users, ie settopbox makers etc. > I was contacted by several companies in the past, with very different > targets of use. It ranges from driving 16000x4000 pixel giant displays > (using industrial 16-head vga cards), to driving 3-d hologram projectors, > or to be used in advertisement display kiosks in 24/7 for months without > a reboot/restart. They all need very stable linux-based player core. > And they all need less restrictive (than gpl) license. > Since these applications are far from as-is use, they usually need > custom plugins, uis, and they are willing to sponsor us to do that. > (note to Rich and friends: sponsoring not only means money, it may mean > added code/patches, hardware to developers, new server and so on) > > LICENSE CHANGE: > the code released in g2 peview47 is mostly under gpl. it means > we need to change license, with the agreement of authors. so, > if you are author of some code in g2, and you disagree with the > lgpl, tell us asap, so we can replace your code. > note, that most of the code in g2 core is written by me, or being > copied/inherited from g1. > about plugins/filters: i want the basic ones (like swscaler, > crop/expand, libavcodec, vo_x11 etc) be lgpl too, so they can > be included in core. The rest (like Rich's filters) may be external > gpl plugins, unless their authors accepts lgpl. > > MY PLANS: > the first goal is to stabilize/finalize all core APIs. most of them > are OK already, maybe needs some fixes or reviews, and documentation. > in details: > VO: the x11_helper stuff needs to be designed better, Beastd and Faust3 > promised some help me, and Koth too in the past. > the driver api (buffer allocation, display etc) stuff is ok imho. > also we should check how to handle "coupled drivers", like > x11+vidix, x11+mga, fbdev+tdfx, vesa+vidix etc. > either the parent driver can handle it, or the vf_vo wrapper can. > both has advs and disadvs. > AO: the g1's libao2 should be ok, with changes to use module_t and > do not use globals. > AF: it is not done yet at all, i have some plans but need time to > implement. anyway AF layer can wait, it is not so important. > VF: i plan to use my code from pre47, and don't wait for Rich's > vaporware. and as Rich will probably refuse LGPL anyway, > it should not be a problem :) > OSD: i've made some drafts and code, have to check it again. > DEMUX: should be ok, except that i want to implement framer API, > to handle raw formats like mp3 or mpeg-ps. > VD: should be ok, except the changes required for framer api > AD: depends on AF > CONFIG: layers 0,1 are (almost) ready, layer 2 should be implemented > > So, as you already could see, i don't count with Iive's and Rich's work > on vo and vf layers. If they have complete, implemented solutions, > i'll check, but i wont wait for them forever and keep reading the > utopistic drafts with mixing multiple video streams etc. > I guess they should work on g3 instead :) > > The goal for g2 is still the same: make it usable as soon as possible. > In short: no new from-scratch overcomplicated apis, and try to keep > some backward compatibility with g1, so plugins can be ported easily. > Think g2 is a cleaned up, extended g1, and not a new player/editor with > ultimate features. > > i expect big flames about this, but please keep it short :) > > > A'rpi / MPlayer, Astral & ESP-team > > -- > MPlayer's new image: happiness & peace & cosmetics & vmiklos > > _______________________________________________ > MPlayer-G2-dev mailing list > MPlayer-G2-dev at mplayerhq.hu > http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-g2-dev -- - G?bor (larta'H) From diego at biurrun.de Wed Aug 4 23:58:53 2004 From: diego at biurrun.de (Diego Biurrun) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 23:58:53 +0200 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040804155916.93B2638DBD@mail.mplayerhq.hu> References: <20040804155916.93B2638DBD@mail.mplayerhq.hu> Message-ID: <16657.23581.699392.777833@biurrun.de> Arpi writes: > > > Arpi writes: > > > > > > I'LL BE BACK: > > > > Who are you? > > Sorry, I don't remember my name. > Yesterday i wrote it down to a paper, but i dont remember where > that paper is... Doh, you mean, wait, it was.. Yes! The .. Oh shoot, it's gone.. > > The main question, though, is: Which license will attract the highest > > number of (quality) developers in the long run. You won't be > > developing it alone after all. > > > > IMNSHO there is a clear preference among developers: > > > > BSD < LGPL < GPL > > > > Just so there is no misunderstanding: Of course there are BSD devs and > > people who prefer BSD over the others (same for LGPL), but if you make > > statistics you will come up with the above relationship. This may not > > be the case for proprietary software developers and their bosses, but > > it surely is the case for free software (open source whatever you want > > to call it) developers. Just compare the amount of development done > > on MPlayer by the former and the latter. I doubt we will see this > > change. > > I cannot agree here. > First of all, do a quick search for libraries on freshmeat, and re-count > licenses. I have a bet that lgpl will win it. I'm much too lazy to do that, but here is a quick unscientific count on my (Debian unstable) system: silver:/usr/share/doc$ for i in lib*; do (find $i -name copyright -exec grep /usr/share/common-licenses/LGPL {} \;) >> /tmp/lgpl; done silver:/usr/share/doc$ wc -l /tmp/lgpl 106 /tmp/lgpl silver:/usr/share/doc$ for i in lib*; do (find $i -name copyright -exec grep /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL {} \;) >> /tmp/gpl; done silver:/usr/share/doc$ wc -l /tmp/gpl 117 /tmp/gpl silver:/usr/share/doc$ ls /usr/share/common-licenses/ Artistic BSD GPL GPL-2 LGPL LGPL-2 LGPL-2.1 So it's 117 GPL vs 106 LGPL libraries. > Probably you didnt realized yet that g2 is more like a library framework, > than a standalone player app (like g1). I know that perfectly well. > Also. I think that quailty developers don't really care of the license, > they care more of the use of their work, ie if it can be used for > more thing it's better. That's wrong, just look at Michael, he does care about licenses and free software. > mplayer g1 was not gpl for the first 2 years, and > it was developed imho more quickly (by less people but they worked a lot > on it, not just contributing 1-2 small patches) than in teh past 2 years. Maybe. But then again maybe it was just the fact that there was so much ground to cover for Linux movie players back then. > So, maybe you're right that gpl app will get more small contributors, but > it's not true that more ppl will work fulltime (or at least as their primary > project for longer time period) on it if it's gpl. It's the reverse imho. I think it is quite the opposite. I know quite a few people that would not work fulltime on BSD since they would consider it free labor. To a lesser degree this also applies to LGPL. I still believe you'll get more devs with GPL. The ones that don't care about licenses will join no matter what but those that do care about licenses might not. So on one side you loose devs on the other you don't. IMO you are trading in the hope of getting new developers for the risk of loosing a few of the old ones. Not a good deal. > Also, you may say that GPL will protect us from the evil, from stealing. > Hey, where did you sleep in the past 4 years then? > mplayer was stolen by many projects and companies, we don't even know > about most of them. we know a few, but couldnt really do anything > against them, think of warpvision, xbox mp or the latest kiss issues. That's hardly a reason to give in to them. Do you expect them to contribute back under LGPL? > Ok i know you're working on kiss problem, but i dont expect much from it. Time will tell. > I also know that LGPL still won't protect us, but as it gives more > freedom to users, they will more likely support us, instead of > silently stealing the code. Or i'm just idealist, just like all > you GPL fans, just a bit different way ;) :) > I think that widely used code is more important goal, than an > 100% rms-compatible freedom. You are of course entitled to this opinion and now I begin to understand why you want LGPL. > > IMO this is the worst of both worlds. We don't get the funds that > > might come in through dual licensing and we don't have the protection > > and patch feedback offered through the GPL. > > probably time to read lgpl then. it still guarantees the patch > feedback, just like gpl, thge only difference to gpl is that > lgpl allows code linking to non-gpl apps. Rest assured, I have read the LGPL in its entirety before and I have read it again in its entirety when you sent the first mail in this thread. I suggest this to everybody who hasn't yet, btw. Let me clarify. We will get patches for the core but many extensions will probably remain closed and out of bounds for us. > and dont say it's dream, i do know several companies willing to do so. > and it's not secret: i think that a big part of g2 plugins will be > implemented by developers sponsored by these companies Again, time will tell. > note, that the case of g1 was simpler, it was the first usable player, > the first player supporting filters etc. so most opensource > developers made trheir code to g1. but in case of g2, there is no > such priority. if we want ppl to work on g2, we need to pay them, > or work for years until g2 gets to a state where it's better than g1. > i realized that nearly no one was interested in g2 development, > even while it was gpl. and i cannot do all of it alone... We'll have to see if this really improves then. > > > Although it can be expected that some commercial users (think of > > > settopbox, divx player etc makers) will sponsor some of you to do > > > custom development for them. I'm personally not interested much in > > > these, but i was asked by several companies in the past year > > > (including some quite big ones), so i know there is such interest. > > > > We've heard many rumours about that, but no backing at all. Is it a > > secret? Did you sign some sort of NDA? > > no, i dont sign such things. actually i dont sign anything :) > anyway i'm not sure if i'm allowed to tell you, as they all asked > me in private, Unless they explicitly ask you for confidentiality, it should be no problem and even then, they did not make you sign anything. > but for a quick list: ESS-net (makers of lottery > terminals over europe, inetesred in g2 core for their nextgen firmware), > Antenna Hungaria (for their dvb receiver settopbox), some slovakian > cable tv (i dont know their name) for their video conversion/archival > purposes, dream media (advertisement projector boxes) and so on. > believe me, it's not fake. OK, that is much better. But what did they offer you? Paying three developers for a year or what? What were they willing to contribute? > > I just don't believe in companies adopting LGPL MPlayer and > > i dont care if you believe or not. as you are not a g2 developer, are you? We'll see. > > > WHY NOT GPL? > > > GPL is just too limited for the purpose of g2 core. Even Michael and > > > Alex agreed on irc. We need some license which allows at least linking > > > to plugins and UIs under different (even closed source) license. > > > Why? Think of a 3rd party company developing codecs (like 3ivx, On2 etc) > > > they want to make their codecs available for linux (and other unix) > > > platforms natively (no DLL hack), but they cannot open the source, > > > or they can but they dont want to put it under GPL. > > > > What license would they put it under? BSD? Surely not.. > > dunno OK, what I was trying to say is that those companies would choose GPL if they were to open up their code. Then they can use a dual license strategy and they are prepared to sue abusers to hell and back. > > Why would you need such a thing to drive such a kiosk? What's the > > difference between a video and a browser kiosk? I have seen browser > > kiosks running Linux + Mozilla. I mean why would they need a > > different license? > > because of using special hardware which needs nda, or non-gpl libraries? > because of using their special player ui designed for that kiosk, which > they dont want to release under gpl? > (becase then its bugs could be find easier and the kiosks could be > cracked?) security by obscurity? OK, this is getting offtopic.. > > The city of M?nster wants to become the most wired city in the world > > (they have fiber all over already) and offer high performance WLAN and > > content streaming for its citizens. They want to build all the > > infrastructure on free software and release everything they create as > > GPL. They were looking at MPlayer for the client part of the > > streaming solution. > > and why would they sponsor us? As I said, they were looking at MPlayer for the client part of the streaming solution and would sponsor modifications. > > Then there was another company that wants to sponsor G2 development as > > a backend for a VJ (video jockey) application. I forgot their name > > and apparently lost their damn business card, but Alex should have it. > > and their VJ app would be also GPL ? i really doubt it. Yes, it would be GPL. > also, if you do simple math: lgpl allows linking to gpl and other > license apps, gpl allows linking to gpl only. it alone means much more > users of lgpl libraries. and more users mean more developers too. There is no doubt that LGPL means more users. The question is what brings more devs. We've both made simple math about that, we'll see. > > > VF: i plan to use my code from pre47, and don't wait for Rich's > > > vaporware. and as Rich will probably refuse LGPL anyway, > > > it should not be a problem :) > > > > >From talking to Rich I know that he is opposed to LGPL. > > > > > i expect big flames about this, but please keep it short :) > > > > I tried my very best. > > you're slowly improving... I'll take that as a compliment ;-P Actually this was the first mail I sent, but my smarthost sometimes refuses to accept the authentication, so this one got stuck. Anyway, I'll keep standing on the sidelines and watch what happens. My opinion will obviously not sway yours, but I felt the discussion needed a dose from the other side as well. As should be obvious by now, I'd much prefer GPL. Diego From diego at biurrun.de Thu Aug 5 00:10:30 2004 From: diego at biurrun.de (Diego Biurrun) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 00:10:30 +0200 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <200408041840.31061.FabianFranz@gmx.de> References: <20040804155916.93B2638DBD@mail.mplayerhq.hu> <200408041840.31061.FabianFranz@gmx.de> Message-ID: <16657.24278.554041.320342@biurrun.de> Fabian Franz writes: > [summary: LGPL vs. GPL] > > I agree that LGPL is better for libraries. > > I think GNU & RMS had a reason to create it. > > And those are the same people, that created GPL. > > Think about it! Well, it's called Lesser GPL for a reason now: http://www.fsf.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html There is no such thing as a "better" license for libraries. You just have to decide what you want to achieve, i.e. if you want to allow proprietary software to link against it or not. > Where is the difference between a _bad_ company using gcc and other software > to produce DRM- / other bad Software or a Software that uses LGPLed > libraries? > > I see no difference. If someone is evil, they'll always find a way. There is a difference between a specific and a general purpose tool. An electrical circuit is not made with a certain intent, a TCPA enabled motherboard is. > Btw: Which advantage would GPL have over LGPL for others? As said above, it depends what you want, if you make a library GPL, it can only be used by free software and this strengthens free sw. Diego From arpi at thot.banki.hu Thu Aug 5 00:40:03 2004 From: arpi at thot.banki.hu (Arpi) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 00:40:03 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <16657.23581.699392.777833@biurrun.de> Message-ID: <20040804224003.493C538E17@mail.mplayerhq.hu> Hi, > > > Arpi writes: > > > > > > > > I'LL BE BACK: > > > > > > Who are you? > > > > Sorry, I don't remember my name. > > Yesterday i wrote it down to a paper, but i dont remember where > > that paper is... > > Doh, you mean, wait, it was.. Yes! The .. Oh shoot, it's gone.. Don't worry, i've found the paper! There is "tpis" written on it. Do you think it may be my name?? it's so unmeaningful... ;(((( no, it must be another paper. > > > The main question, though, is: Which license will attract the highest > > > number of (quality) developers in the long run. You won't be > > > developing it alone after all. > > > > > > IMNSHO there is a clear preference among developers: > > > > > > BSD < LGPL < GPL > > > > > > Just so there is no misunderstanding: Of course there are BSD devs and > > > people who prefer BSD over the others (same for LGPL), but if you make > > > statistics you will come up with the above relationship. This may not > > > be the case for proprietary software developers and their bosses, but > > > it surely is the case for free software (open source whatever you want > > > to call it) developers. Just compare the amount of development done > > > on MPlayer by the former and the latter. I doubt we will see this > > > change. > > > > I cannot agree here. > > First of all, do a quick search for libraries on freshmeat, and re-count > > licenses. I have a bet that lgpl will win it. > > I'm much too lazy to do that, but here is a quick unscientific count > on my (Debian unstable) system: > > silver:/usr/share/doc$ for i in lib*; do (find $i -name copyright -exec > grep /usr/share/common-licenses/LGPL {} \;) >> /tmp/lgpl; done > silver:/usr/share/doc$ wc -l /tmp/lgpl > 106 /tmp/lgpl > silver:/usr/share/doc$ for i in lib*; do (find $i -name copyright -exec > grep /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL {} \;) >> /tmp/gpl; done > silver:/usr/share/doc$ wc -l /tmp/gpl > 117 /tmp/gpl > silver:/usr/share/doc$ ls /usr/share/common-licenses/ > Artistic BSD GPL GPL-2 LGPL LGPL-2 LGPL-2.1 > > So it's 117 GPL vs 106 LGPL libraries. no much difference. anyway it depends on how many apps you have installed and how well they share the common libraries. why don't you count gpl vs lgpl of lib* packages only? > > Probably you didnt realized yet that g2 is more like a library framework, > > than a standalone player app (like g1). > > I know that perfectly well. then how come your crazy ideas running g2 as child process via slave mode? no one with a brain biger than a chick's one would ever do that. > > Also. I think that quailty developers don't really care of the license, > > they care more of the use of their work, ie if it can be used for > > more thing it's better. > > That's wrong, just look at Michael, he does care about licenses and > free software. exceptions makes rules sronger. > > mplayer g1 was not gpl for the first 2 years, and > > it was developed imho more quickly (by less people but they worked a lot > > on it, not just contributing 1-2 small patches) than in teh past 2 years. > > Maybe. But then again maybe it was just the fact that there was so > much ground to cover for Linux movie players back then. maybe. if that's true, it also means i cant expect much interest of g2 development. > > So, maybe you're right that gpl app will get more small contributors, but > > it's not true that more ppl will work fulltime (or at least as their primary > > project for longer time period) on it if it's gpl. It's the reverse imho. > > I think it is quite the opposite. I know quite a few people that > would not work fulltime on BSD since they would consider it free > labor. To a lesser degree this also applies to LGPL. > > I still believe you'll get more devs with GPL. The ones that don't > care about licenses will join no matter what but those that do care > about licenses might not. So on one side you loose devs on the other > you don't. > > IMO you are trading in the hope of getting new developers for the risk > of loosing a few of the old ones. Not a good deal. there is no one to loose. except for Michael, but he accepted lgpl, with condition me coming back. (also he accepted lgpl for libavcodec, which was much worse case) > > Also, you may say that GPL will protect us from the evil, from stealing. > > Hey, where did you sleep in the past 4 years then? > > mplayer was stolen by many projects and companies, we don't even know > > about most of them. we know a few, but couldnt really do anything > > against them, think of warpvision, xbox mp or the latest kiss issues. > > That's hardly a reason to give in to them. Do you expect them to > contribute back under LGPL? yes. they cannot contribute back if they steal the code illegally, as it would mean they ack'ed the stealing. if they can use lgpl code legally, why not contribute back? especially if the license forces them. if they still dont contribute, you can still go to court, you know the way :) > > Ok i know you're working on kiss problem, but i dont expect much from it. > > Time will tell. sure. time(-inf) ;) > > I also know that LGPL still won't protect us, but as it gives more > > freedom to users, they will more likely support us, instead of > > silently stealing the code. Or i'm just idealist, just like all > > you GPL fans, just a bit different way ;) > > :) > > > I think that widely used code is more important goal, than an > > 100% rms-compatible freedom. > > You are of course entitled to this opinion and now I begin to > understand why you want LGPL. great. > > > IMO this is the worst of both worlds. We don't get the funds that > > > might come in through dual licensing and we don't have the protection > > > and patch feedback offered through the GPL. > > > > probably time to read lgpl then. it still guarantees the patch > > feedback, just like gpl, thge only difference to gpl is that > > lgpl allows code linking to non-gpl apps. > > Rest assured, I have read the LGPL in its entirety before and I have > read it again in its entirety when you sent the first mail in this > thread. I suggest this to everybody who hasn't yet, btw. > > Let me clarify. We will get patches for the core but many extensions > will probably remain closed and out of bounds for us. yes it may remain close of course. it's the goal what companies want to reach. so they can legally using g2 core and theyr closed codecs. BUT. but... but! we can copy their binary codec and use as-is. without the need to rev. eng. the interfaces, as they either use our apis (they should), or they have to give back the api/core changes. ah, and as the core is in our hands, we can do anything we want, including copy drm'ed content downloaded by closedsrc plugins :) > > and dont say it's dream, i do know several companies willing to do so. > > and it's not secret: i think that a big part of g2 plugins will be > > implemented by developers sponsored by these companies > > Again, time will tell. sure. but it should be time(up to half year) > > note, that the case of g1 was simpler, it was the first usable player, > > the first player supporting filters etc. so most opensource > > developers made trheir code to g1. but in case of g2, there is no > > such priority. if we want ppl to work on g2, we need to pay them, > > or work for years until g2 gets to a state where it's better than g1. > > i realized that nearly no one was interested in g2 development, > > even while it was gpl. and i cannot do all of it alone... > > We'll have to see if this really improves then. at least it cannot be worse. > > > > Although it can be expected that some commercial users (think of > > > > settopbox, divx player etc makers) will sponsor some of you to do > > > > custom development for them. I'm personally not interested much in > > > > these, but i was asked by several companies in the past year > > > > (including some quite big ones), so i know there is such interest. > > > > > > We've heard many rumours about that, but no backing at all. Is it a > > > secret? Did you sign some sort of NDA? > > > > no, i dont sign such things. actually i dont sign anything :) > > anyway i'm not sure if i'm allowed to tell you, as they all asked > > me in private, > > Unless they explicitly ask you for confidentiality, it should be no > problem and even then, they did not make you sign anything. > > > but for a quick list: ESS-net (makers of lottery > > terminals over europe, inetesred in g2 core for their nextgen firmware), > > Antenna Hungaria (for their dvb receiver settopbox), some slovakian > > cable tv (i dont know their name) for their video conversion/archival > > purposes, dream media (advertisement projector boxes) and so on. > > believe me, it's not fake. > > OK, that is much better. But what did they offer you? Paying three > developers for a year or what? What were they willing to contribute? no exact offers yet, as they all wait for better license than gpl. probably they'll pay some developers to do the job. as they all need some working usable framework, at least the development of the g2 base should be sponsored. and it's what we need. > > > I just don't believe in companies adopting LGPL MPlayer and > > > > i dont care if you believe or not. as you are not a g2 developer, are you? > > We'll see. i dont think that you can code much in g2 :) and html/doc stuff is already reserved for gabu :) > > > > WHY NOT GPL? > > > > GPL is just too limited for the purpose of g2 core. Even Michael and > > > > Alex agreed on irc. We need some license which allows at least linking > > > > to plugins and UIs under different (even closed source) license. > > > > Why? Think of a 3rd party company developing codecs (like 3ivx, On2 etc) > > > > they want to make their codecs available for linux (and other unix) > > > > platforms natively (no DLL hack), but they cannot open the source, > > > > or they can but they dont want to put it under GPL. > > > > > > What license would they put it under? BSD? Surely not.. > > > > dunno > > OK, what I was trying to say is that those companies would choose GPL > if they were to open up their code. Then they can use a dual license > strategy and they are prepared to sue abusers to hell and back. if it's gpl and something, then it's free software, you can do anything you want with it... oh, i have a deja-vu :) > > > Why would you need such a thing to drive such a kiosk? What's the > > > difference between a video and a browser kiosk? I have seen browser > > > kiosks running Linux + Mozilla. I mean why would they need a > > > different license? > > > > because of using special hardware which needs nda, or non-gpl libraries? > > because of using their special player ui designed for that kiosk, which > > they dont want to release under gpl? > > (becase then its bugs could be find easier and the kiosks could be > > cracked?) > > security by obscurity? OK, this is getting offtopic.. sure. but it's their problem... > > > The city of M?nster wants to become the most wired city in the world > > > (they have fiber all over already) and offer high performance WLAN and > > > content streaming for its citizens. They want to build all the > > > infrastructure on free software and release everything they create as > > > GPL. They were looking at MPlayer for the client part of the > > > streaming solution. > > > > and why would they sponsor us? > > As I said, they were looking at MPlayer for the client part of the > streaming solution and would sponsor modifications. what modifications they need? a nice gui? > > > Then there was another company that wants to sponsor G2 development as > > > a backend for a VJ (video jockey) application. I forgot their name > > > and apparently lost their damn business card, but Alex should have it. > > > > and their VJ app would be also GPL ? i really doubt it. > > Yes, it would be GPL. then they cant sell it, so they cant get money from it, so they cant sponsor development unless they are also sponsored by gov or something. > > also, if you do simple math: lgpl allows linking to gpl and other > > license apps, gpl allows linking to gpl only. it alone means much more > > users of lgpl libraries. and more users mean more developers too. > > There is no doubt that LGPL means more users. The question is what > brings more devs. We've both made simple math about that, we'll see. > > > > > VF: i plan to use my code from pre47, and don't wait for Rich's > > > > vaporware. and as Rich will probably refuse LGPL anyway, > > > > it should not be a problem :) > > > > > > >From talking to Rich I know that he is opposed to LGPL. > > > > > > > i expect big flames about this, but please keep it short :) > > > > > > I tried my very best. > > > > you're slowly improving... > > I'll take that as a compliment ;-P > > Actually this was the first mail I sent, but my smarthost sometimes > refuses to accept the authentication, so this one got stuck. > > Anyway, I'll keep standing on the sidelines and watch what happens. > My opinion will obviously not sway yours, but I felt the discussion > needed a dose from the other side as well. > > As should be obvious by now, I'd much prefer GPL. i see. but as i already said, i'm personally not interested in gpl g2 development. if someone needs a gpl player, use g1. if you need a clean library framework then you'll also need some acceptable license too. A'rpi / MPlayer, Astral & ESP-team -- MPlayer's new image: happiness & peace & cosmetics & vmiklos From barbieri at gmail.com Thu Aug 5 00:48:19 2004 From: barbieri at gmail.com (Gustavo Barbieri) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 19:48:19 -0300 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040804224003.493C538E17@mail.mplayerhq.hu> References: <20040804224003.493C538E17@mail.mplayerhq.hu> Message-ID: <9ef20ef3040804154850d9c3c1@mail.gmail.com> Arpi, Better stop offending people, this will lead you nowhere. If you want to develop a player by your own and _ALONE_, you don't need to fight the world, just tell: "I WANT TO CODE A PLAYER ALONE". Take a beer, or as many as you wish, be cool... -- Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri --------------------------------------- Computer Engineer 2001 - UNICAMP GPSL - Grupo Pro Software Livre Cell..: +55 (19) 9165 8010 Jabber: gsbarbieri at jabber.org ICQ#: 17249123 GPG: 0xB640E1A2 @ wwwkeys.pgp.net From arpi at thot.banki.hu Thu Aug 5 01:02:59 2004 From: arpi at thot.banki.hu (Arpi) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 01:02:59 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <9ef20ef3040804154850d9c3c1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20040804230259.B1EAC38147@mail.mplayerhq.hu> Hi, > Arpi, > > Better stop offending people, this will lead you nowhere. i dont offend ppl. if you feel so, time to leave. > If you want to develop a player by your own and _ALONE_, you don't > need to fight the world, just tell: "I WANT TO CODE A PLAYER ALONE". its not my goal. although i don't expect much help, as i did not have at g1 until it was usable. nobody believe me i can do it until i've did it. actually this is why i can get some sponsors, so i will have some developers to help. you may say that i could have them for free is choosing gpl, but then i would ask back: then where they were in the past 1 year?? > Take a beer, or as many as you wish, be cool... i hate beer, it's well known fact. seems not well enough :) A'rpi / MPlayer, Astral & ESP-team -- MPlayer's new image: happiness & peace & cosmetics & vmiklos From diego at biurrun.de Thu Aug 5 01:46:13 2004 From: diego at biurrun.de (Diego Biurrun) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 01:46:13 +0200 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040804224003.493C538E17@mail.mplayerhq.hu> References: <16657.23581.699392.777833@biurrun.de> <20040804224003.493C538E17@mail.mplayerhq.hu> Message-ID: <16657.30021.738675.539872@biurrun.de> Arpi writes: > > > > First of all, do a quick search for libraries on freshmeat, and re-count > > > licenses. I have a bet that lgpl will win it. > > > > I'm much too lazy to do that, but here is a quick unscientific count > > on my (Debian unstable) system: > > > > silver:/usr/share/doc$ for i in lib*; do (find $i -name copyright -exec > > grep /usr/share/common-licenses/LGPL {} \;) >> /tmp/lgpl; done > > silver:/usr/share/doc$ wc -l /tmp/lgpl > > 106 /tmp/lgpl > > silver:/usr/share/doc$ for i in lib*; do (find $i -name copyright -exec > > grep /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL {} \;) >> /tmp/gpl; done > > silver:/usr/share/doc$ wc -l /tmp/gpl > > 117 /tmp/gpl > > silver:/usr/share/doc$ ls /usr/share/common-licenses/ > > Artistic BSD GPL GPL-2 LGPL LGPL-2 LGPL-2.1 > > > > So it's 117 GPL vs 106 LGPL libraries. > > no much difference. anyway it depends on how many apps you have > installed and how well they share the common libraries. > > why don't you count gpl vs lgpl of lib* packages only? Look closer, that's exactly what I did. > > IMO you are trading in the hope of getting new developers for the risk > > of loosing a few of the old ones. Not a good deal. > > there is no one to loose. > except for Michael, but he accepted lgpl, with condition me coming back. > (also he accepted lgpl for libavcodec, which was much worse case) Any pointers to the lavc license discussion? I'd be interested in reading it. > ah, and as the core is in our hands, we can do anything we want, > including copy drm'ed content downloaded by closedsrc plugins :) Yes, this is a loophole that I've already described. It's part of why I believe proprietary companies will only use top to bottom proprietary solutions. Let's not talk too loud, though, they may fall into our clever trap ;-) > > > > The city of M?nster wants to become the most wired city in the world > > > > (they have fiber all over already) and offer high performance WLAN and > > > > content streaming for its citizens. They want to build all the > > > > infrastructure on free software and release everything they create as > > > > GPL. They were looking at MPlayer for the client part of the > > > > streaming solution. > > > > > > and why would they sponsor us? > > > > As I said, they were looking at MPlayer for the client part of the > > streaming solution and would sponsor modifications. > > what modifications they need? a nice gui? Cross-platform support with GUI on all platforms, improved streaming, stuff like that. > > > > Then there was another company that wants to sponsor G2 development as > > > > a backend for a VJ (video jockey) application. I forgot their name > > > > and apparently lost their damn business card, but Alex should have it. > > > > > > and their VJ app would be also GPL ? i really doubt it. > > > > Yes, it would be GPL. > > then they cant sell it, so they cant get money from it, so they > cant sponsor development unless they are also sponsored by > gov or something. They have a client that wants a VJ application. They have been hired to develop and service it, it's as easy as that. > > As should be obvious by now, I'd much prefer GPL. > > i see. > but as i already said, i'm personally not interested in gpl g2 development. > if someone needs a gpl player, use g1. if you need a clean library framework > then you'll also need some acceptable license too. xine-lib is GPL, btw, like you just asked on IRC. Diego From attila at kinali.ch Thu Aug 5 03:50:10 2004 From: attila at kinali.ch (Attila Kinali) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 10:50:10 +0900 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040804090105.A738038C05@mail.mplayerhq.hu> References: <20040804005146.GA1240@pai.kinali.ch> <20040804090105.A738038C05@mail.mplayerhq.hu> Message-ID: <20040805015010.GA1313@pai.kinali.ch> Moin, Damn, i'm again using worktime for somthing... stupid... On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 11:01:05AM +0200, Arpi wrote: > > Why do you want to get commercial users onto MPlayer ? > > Just for the sponsoring ? > > argh. no, of course. > i just want to "legalize" (bad word for this, but i dont know the right one) > video playback under non-m$ systems. most of the codec/container makers > would port/develop their stuff for non-m$ systems, if they have any > chance, ie. any usable API they can use, like quicktike or dshow on win/mac. > unfortunatelly they don't have any 'standard api' under unix/linux, so they > end up either not supporting unix, or they hack together some useless > standalone player (see realplay, bink player etc). > > we currently support most formats through win32 DLLs run by big hacks in > emulators. ok, it's a working (x86-only) workaround, but not a solution. > the soultion would be native codecs. > and dont tell me to rev.eng. every single dll, because it's also not a > solution... I'm not yet sure whether lgpl is the right thing for this. Comercial companies who care about contributing back will do so even if we use gpl, but those who keep everything for themself will not even if we use lgpl. You said on irc taht you dont care about user, may they be private or comercial, but you care about comercial developers. I'm really not sure whether an lgpl player framework will gain us any comercial devels as they will be paid on working on the companies code which has to make money and which is mostelikely the closed source part which they dont want to publish for some obscure reason. I also dont see how closed source codecs will help us, as currently the way with the dlls works quite well (yes, i know it's not optimal). And for the other part, i only see vo/ao modules as a place where closed source would make sense (for special hw), but those companies should rather make their code gpl instead as they make money from selling the hardware and support, not from the software. But i cannot say for sure what will happen as my cristal ball is currently in repair. > btw i wonder why m$ didnt notice this empty space, ie. the lack of a video > framework uner unix, they could port their dshow/dmo api and let the > companies port their codecs to it. so they could get monopol status over a > free os when it comes to video playback :) Simply to keep linux an unusable platform and thus binding normal users to windows. But nowadays it has changed. If you'd know how many problems the dshow/vfw framework creates for playback and how many people on windows are using mplayer and vlc because they dont use it and thus simply work, you'd be surprised. IMHO m$ lost the video battle already, even on windows. IMHO we should now go on and force them to use our, fully free formats. (fully free as in rms compatible, as they cannot embrace and conquer it) > > He came up with this idea a few months ago, after you left. > > He never spelled it out in a mail but we talked a few times about it > > on irc. > > could you summarize it ? > it's new to me... The idea, as he told me, was to start completly from scratch as the g1 design and the parts of it that were taken over to g2 are too limited. First it should be started from a very small core that could not do much more then just play an avi or a nut file on a very simple vo, but would already contain all interface definitions for the more advanced stuff. In a second (and third, fourth) step all those advanced features should be implemented one by one. Thus there would be a usable player from the beginning, as the core should be easy to write. > > > > What do you want to achive? > > > working, usable g2 > > > > > > > How do you want to do it ? > > > quickly > > > > Good.. > > You can count on my support here. > > nice. not that you can do much here :) Small note here: Diego pointed out that it was not exactly clear what i meant: I mean that i support you if you want to do something. I definitly will not stand in your way. But, i'm not sure whether lgpl is the right thing or whether gpl would be better. And i'm even getting more undecided by reading the mails here. > > I know that at least Diego and iive are reading this list (alex > > disapears from time to time). Also Michael didnt respond. > > i talked with them at irc, few days before sent this mail. > i had to talk to at least Michael, his code is key point of whole g2. All developers code is the key point of OSS development. No code w/o developers. (that's why i see myself as a bad member of the OSS movement, i write not enough code) Attila Kinali From fre_ax at mbnet.fi Thu Aug 5 08:49:19 2004 From: fre_ax at mbnet.fi (Fre_ax) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 09:49:19 +0300 (EEST) Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <20040805015010.GA1313@pai.kinali.ch> References: <20040805015010.GA1313@pai.kinali.ch> Message-ID: <1206.62.241.232.211.1091688559.squirrel@webmail.mbnet.fi> Hi! > Moin, > > Damn, i'm again using worktime for somthing... stupid... > > On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 11:01:05AM +0200, Arpi wrote: >> > Why do you want to get commercial users onto MPlayer ? >> > Just for the sponsoring ? >> >> argh. no, of course. >> i just want to "legalize" (bad word for this, but i dont know the >> right one) video playback under non-m$ systems. most of the >> codec/container makers would port/develop their stuff for non-m$ >> systems, if they have any chance, ie. any usable API they can use, >> like quicktike or dshow on win/mac. unfortunatelly they don't have >> any 'standard api' under unix/linux, so they end up either not >> supporting unix, or they hack together some useless standalone player >> (see realplay, bink player etc). >> >> we currently support most formats through win32 DLLs run by big hacks >> in emulators. ok, it's a working (x86-only) workaround, but not a >> solution. the soultion would be native codecs. >> and dont tell me to rev.eng. every single dll, because it's also not >> a solution... > > I'm not yet sure whether lgpl is the right thing for this. > Comercial companies who care about contributing back will do so even > if we use gpl, but those who keep everything for themself will not > even if we use lgpl. > You said on irc taht you dont care about user, may they be private or > comercial, but you care about comercial developers. I'm really not > sure whether an lgpl player framework will gain us any comercial > devels as they will be paid on working on the companies code which has > to make money and which is mostelikely the closed source part which > they dont want to publish for some obscure reason. > I also dont see how closed source codecs will help us, as currently > the way with the dlls works quite well (yes, i know it's not > optimal). And for the other part, i only see vo/ao modules as a place > where closed source would make sense (for special hw), but those > companies should rather make their code gpl instead as they make money > from selling the hardware and support, not from the software. > But i cannot say for sure what will happen as my cristal > ball is currently in repair. IMO better idea would be to keep mplayer g2 gpl and create simple wrapper layer around it as LGPL. This would, to my understanding, keep everyone pretty happy. :) If mplayer goes LGPL we will be discussing moving mplayer back to GPL after few years and you know it. I see no reason why would they need to get mplayer fully under LGPL. >> btw i wonder why m$ didnt notice this empty space, ie. the lack of a >> video framework uner unix, they could port their dshow/dmo api and >> let the companies port their codecs to it. so they could get monopol >> status over a free os when it comes to video playback :) > > Simply to keep linux an unusable platform and thus binding normal > users to windows. But nowadays it has changed. If you'd know how many > problems the dshow/vfw framework creates for playback and how many > people on windows are using mplayer and vlc because they dont use it > and thus simply work, you'd be surprised. > IMHO m$ lost the video battle already, even on windows. > IMHO we should now go on and force them to use our, fully free > formats. (fully free as in rms compatible, as they cannot embrace and > conquer it) Damn straight. > Attila Kinali Aapo Tahkola From attila at kinali.ch Fri Aug 6 02:34:56 2004 From: attila at kinali.ch (Attila Kinali) Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2004 09:34:56 +0900 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <1206.62.241.232.211.1091688559.squirrel@webmail.mbnet.fi> References: <20040805015010.GA1313@pai.kinali.ch> <1206.62.241.232.211.1091688559.squirrel@webmail.mbnet.fi> Message-ID: <20040806003456.GA1353@pai.kinali.ch> On Thu, Aug 05, 2004 at 09:49:19AM +0300, Fre_ax wrote: > IMO better idea would be to keep mplayer g2 gpl and create simple wrapper > layer around it as LGPL. > This would, to my understanding, keep everyone pretty happy. :) ROTFL Yeah, a lgpl wrapper around gpl code makes the whole magicaly lgpl. I strongly advice you to read the both the gpl and lgpl license text and think about them before you start arguing. Also an advice an all the people here who argue about the future of MPlayer w/o any relation to it: Don't say anything unless you really have something to say. Those "Me too" Mails suck. (beside they dont contribute anything to the subject) Attila Kinali From dalias at aerifal.cx Fri Aug 27 23:15:59 2004 From: dalias at aerifal.cx (D Richard Felker III) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 17:15:59 -0400 Subject: [MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on... In-Reply-To: <16656.60028.748999.287379@biurrun.de> References: <20040802130402.GA968@pai.kinali.ch> <20040803144306.B8C3738E8B@mail.mplayerhq.hu> <20040804005146.GA1240@pai.kinali.ch> <20040804084723.GA1596@Beastland> <16656.60028.748999.287379@biurrun.de> Message-ID: <20040827211559.GB15750@brightrain.aerifal.cx> On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 03:54:04PM +0200, Diego Biurrun wrote: > Alexander Strasser writes: > > On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 09:51:46AM +0900, Attila Kinali wrote: > > > > - getting g2 api accepted as 'industial standard for linux/unix video/media' > > > > something like oms, and later gstreamer and openquicktime wanted to > > > > reach, with no much success. > > > > we have to make it available for commercial users, otherwise they wont > > > > spend their time developing/porting their codecs, demuxers etc for it. > > > > - getting some money/hw/sponsorship to developers who need it to be able > > > > to work on the code fulltime or at least more time. > > > > > > Why do you want to get commercial users onto MPlayer ? > > > Just for the sponsoring ? > > Don't forget it be should the movie framework for ALL. Think about computer > > games and lot's of other out of movie playback applications ( as the > > main focus is on something else ), that can't publish their code, using > > MPlayer G2 for movie playback and what not. > > Games could use GPL MPlayer G2 for movie playback without having to > publish their code. First of all, hi guys, I'm back. I know this is old, but I'd like to stick a few comments in here... Something like MPlayer (g1 or g2) is completely useless to a game wanting to play movies for cut scenes or whatever. The whole purpose of a program like MPlayer is its versatility. The ability to play any random-ass broken movie file, filter to correct for problems in the source or to adapt it to the format you want to view it in, seek back and forth, etc... A game will be showing movies of exactly one file format & codec, will be playing them linearly (no seeking), and will not need any filtering or whatnot. A very very basic player core is much more appropriate for this than a 10-20 meg MPlayer. Now, the same is true of lots of other proposed uses: cable tv video on demand, kiosks, huge screen displays at events, etc. Whenever you have homogeneous data to play, homogeneous display requirements, etc., you can get by with a really simple player tailored to your purpose. No MPlayer needed. While I was away I learned about Arpi rejoining G2 and his LGPL plans, and I decided way back then not to flame. I'm tired of seeing everyone mad at each other. I've also realized that Arpi's vision of G2 is a lot different from what I want(ed) to work on. As long as no one commandeers GPL code into G2 without the authors' permission, I have no objection to the G2 authors (Arpi, etc.) making the core LGPL. I think it would be more strategic to stick with GPL, but it's not my business. I hope they'll be open to having things outside the core be GPL and having the "default" player app be GPL, but this isn't important right now. I'll continue to work on some code with MPlayer (G1 and G2) under GPL, mainly stuff I've already been doing like mencoder and video filters. Maybe introducing a new audio filter design too, and maybe (_maybe_) even giving a little of this code to G2 under LGPL if it needs to be to get in G2. In the immediate future I won't have a lot of time for this anyway though. Right now my priority with respect to MPlayer/ffmpeg will be finalizing the NUT spec and getting NUT deployed. Along with snow and sonic, I think we have the chance to take a much bigger place in (crossplatform) multimedia. In the future, I still want to work on something like what I proposed before, a new framework for audio and video that's much more radical than what Arpi has in mind for G2 (i.e. what he dubbs "G3"). If I do this, it will be under GPL, and will fill a comparable role to something like gstreamer or DirectShow except it will be done right. Well that's all for now. Sorry to disappoint with no flames, and glad to have everyone back on the team. Rich