[MPlayer-G2-dev] dual licensing try 2

[D Richard Felker III]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 06:38:30PM +0100, Arpi wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Ok, it seems that the codec/filter developers are against dual licensing.
> Not a big surprise :)
> 
> So, I'm restricting dual license mess to the stream/demuxer layer only.
> The audio/video pipeline (including codecs, filters, ao/vo) will remain free.
> 
> Why?
> 
> Most of the possible licensers are using hardware decoders, so they
> don't need the ap/vp stuff anyway. And if they need sw codecs, they
> can still buy libdivx and libmad (both are available for commercial
> licensing). Maybe i'll even implement a sample program using stream/demux
> layers only and libdivx+libmad for decoding (maybe using minimal
> fbdev or xv output code for display).
> 
> Also, they mostly want to modify stream/demux code only, not the
> vp/ap stuff. So they can do their propietrary changes (ie. encrypted
> streaming, authentication, pay-per-view, secret fileformat etc) to it
> and link the GPL mplayer-g2 to the modified closedsource demuxer lib.
> (dunno if GPL really allows linking of closedsource libs, but if it isnt
> then we're already in trouble with codec DLLs, libdivx and others)
> 
> As you refusers (Michael, Rich) don't develop demuxers anyway, it
> shouldn't hurt you. It may hurt Albeu, but who cares? :) (sorry)

It's very simple. I am opposed to involvement in any project which
will result in the increase of non-free software, and I have no
interest in being involved in a dual-licensed MPlayer.

Besides, it was already brought up that if non-free licenses are sold
for only part of MPlayer, then lame proprietary software companies
will just steal the rest of MPlayer too, and then the core developers
won't pursue legal action against these companies because they're
being paid by them. It's a clear conflict of interest.

So: drop dual-license, or drop me. It's your choice.

Rich