[MPlayer-G2-dev] dual licensing try 2

[D Richard Felker III]

On Mon, Feb 23, 2004 at 06:57:13PM +0100, rsnel at cube.dyndns.org wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2004 at 12:26:49PM -0500, D Richard Felker III wrote:
> > On Mon, Feb 23, 2004 at 06:14:05PM +0100, rsnel at cube.dyndns.org wrote:
> > > On Mon, Feb 23, 2004 at 05:18:01PM +0100, Gabucino wrote:
> > > > It helps the developers avoiding potentially harmful and time+money 
> > > > consuming lawsuits.
> > > I understand your point. I thought you meant the developers of e.g.
> > > KiSS.
> > 
> > I don't understand his point. IMO there will be at least as many or
> > more legal disputes if we start licensing MPlayer for proprietary use,
> > and it will be just as hard or harder to resolve them.
> 
> Well, Gabucino could argue that the licensing business brings in some
> money, and that money can be used in legal battles. So it would save
> money, but not time. (but I don't know how much A'rpi will ask for a
> commercial license, and I also don't know what a worst-case lawsuit
> costs) So his point, while it may have some merit, needs further
> elaboration. 
> 
> However, I do think that most companies would pay for a license, just to
> be free of the hassle of dealing with e-mails from customers who want
> the source code and the wrath of the slashdot crowd. 
> 
> Those customers would be the real losers, in the case of proprietary
> licensing KiSS et al could just say 'no, we don't have to give you the
> source because we bought a license from The MPlayer Foundation'. The
> MPlayer Foundation would, in that case, have publicly sacrificed the
> right of that costumer (and all other customers) to look at the source
> for some money/hardware/whatever.
> 
> I'd personally rather have KiSS lying about their copyright infringement
> then them saying 'we have permission because we payed The MPlayer
> Foundation money to be legally able to DENY you the freedoms you would
> have had if they hadn't sold out (maniacal laughter)'.

Agree totally.

Rich