[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] LICENSE: remove incorrect statements that leaked in from libav

[Reinhard Tartler]

On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 7:07 PM, Michael Niedermayer <michaelni at gmx.at> wrote:
> This is based on the ubuntu technical committee understanding of
> the libfaac license:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/technical-board/2011-February/000703.html
>
> That is
> 1. libfaac is not LGPL itself as a whole
> 2. libfaac is not GPL compatible (additional restrictions violate GPL)
> 3. libfaac is distributable (ubuntu distributes it)
> 4. libfaac contains LGPL code itself (stated in libfaac README and other places)
> from above axioms one can conclude libfaac must be linkable with LGPL code
> because where it not, it itself could not be distributed

Please note that while Ubuntu has chosen to not remove the faac
package from the official archives, the consensus was that the
libavcodec library must not link against libfaac. The "conclusion"
quoted above would only hold if all non-GPL parts were removed from
faac, as ubuntu would need to distribute the result as a whole. This,
however, would not result in a functional library. Therefore, the
problematic parts constitute a significant part of the resulting
program, so that the conditions of all involved licenses need to be
obeyed.

-- 
regards,
    Reinhard