[FFmpeg-devel] Cleanup libswscale and reimplement GPL code under LGPL

[François Revol]

> On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 09:23:09PM +0200, Fran?ois Revol wrote:
> > > Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> > > > On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 02:29:29PM +0200, Luca Abeni wrote:
> > > >> Hi Ramiro,
> > > >>
> > > >> Ramiro Polla wrote:
> > > >> [...]
> > > >>> I've looked at the license headers and a few svn annotates 
> > > > > > from 
> > > > > > GPL
> > > >>> files. What parts of the code is left in GPL?
> > > >> As far as I remember, the main GPLed parts are:
> > > >> - the SIMD optimisations
> > > >> - the code used to initialize the tables used for RGB <---> 
> > > > > YUV
> > > >>    conversion (my experience is that it is particularly 
> > > > > difficult
> > > >>    to rewrite this code without looking at the source, or 
> > > > > without
> > > >>    having to modify the LGPLed code that uses the tables).
> > > > 
> > > > IMO rewriting the SIMD code because of GPL makes no sense, why 
> > > > would you
> > > > want to do that? The code can be used without SIMD, is it so 
> > > > bad 
> > > > that
> > > > non free software will be a little slower?
> > 
> > Please stop assuming non-GPL == non-Free.
> > There are many software out there that are non GPL and Free 
> > (including 
> > FreeBSD and other clones).
> 
> BSD is GPL compatible, no problem here ...

Yes but that's assuming BSD licenced projects agree to be "tainted" by 
GPL.
Some projects have a policy to avoid GPL for many reasons.
Anyway, I don't have time to answer trolls.

> > That's more than irritating.
> 
> So can you come up with a single example of free, GPL incompatible 
> software
> that would benefit from LGPL swscaler?

Not at the moment but that's not the question.

Fran?ois.