[Ffmpeg-devel] overall license review - adding proper licenseheaders

Rich Felker dalias
Fri Sep 1 23:31:08 CEST 2006


On Fri, Sep 01, 2006 at 10:47:03PM +0200, Luca Abeni wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Fri, 2006-09-01 at 11:39 -0400, Rich Felker wrote:
> [...]
> > > In libavformat/ dv1394.h is marked as GPL while dv1394.c is marked as
> > > LGPL.  While this is probably an oversight, this makes FFmpeg versions
> > > compiled with dv1394 support effectively GPL.  It's compiled in by
> > > default on platforms that support it.  This looks like a simple
> > > oversight, but probably the original author should be asked before this
> > > is changed or the code put under CONFIG_GPL.
> > 
> > Yes this probably won't be an issue but should be resolved.
> Looking at the files, it seems that dv1394.h is derived from a linux
> kernel header, which is GPLed... This is probably why dv1394.h is marked
> as GPL. If this understanding is correct, I think it cannot be changed
> to LGPL, and the correct solution would be to disable dv1394 if
> --enable-gpl is not used.

Just rewrite any code in the header, remove any potentially
copyrightable formatting or comments, and then slap whatever license
(or preferably public domain) you like on it. That's what I do with
such headers. Struct definitions and constants are not copyrightable.

Rich





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