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

Michael Niedermayer michaelni at gmx.at
Tue Aug 14 18:15:16 CEST 2012


Hi Reinhard

On Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 05:35:22PM +0200, Reinhard Tartler wrote:
> 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.

libavcodec linked against libfaac would make it impossible to link
libavcodec to GPL applications, that would be hellishly annoying to
ubuntu, thus that decission is quite understandable


> 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.

iam not sure i fully understand what you are saying here

But as you are already here, can you comment on if my following
interpretation matches your understanding:

"It is possible to legally link libfaac with LGPL code and distribute
 the result so that all licenses are obeyed. (not arguing here about
 what that would involve exactly or how easy it would be)"

[...]

-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

Why not whip the teacher when the pupil misbehaves? -- Diogenes of Sinope
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