[FFmpeg-devel] Yadif relicensing to LGPL

[Tim Wojtulewicz]

It’s been a long time since I’ve worked on ffmpeg/mplayer to the point that I don’t even remember what changes I made to yadif.  If my vote matters, I approve changing to LGPL as it likely means more use of the code outside ffmpeg alone.

Tim
On October 28, 2013 at 4:19:06 AM, Robert Krüger (krueger at lesspain.de) wrote:

Hi,  

it has taken a while but this is now the proposal for the relicensing  
of the filter yadif from GPL to LGPL:  

There are a number of sponsors which have offered money for the  
relicensing, in total 18075 Euro.  

Michael has asked me to come up with a suggestion for the money split  
and procedures and this is it:  

7000 Euro are paid to Michael directly  

Loren Merrit, Daniel Kang, James Darnley and Baptiste Coudurier  
receive 1500 Euro each if they approve and their code is used.  

The remaining 5075 Euro are given to the project via an SPI donation,  
so it can be used to cover travel expenses, hardware etc..  

The sponsors will commit to paying the money in an email to Michael  
and me, provided the relicensing of yadif with at least its current  
functionality and quality happens before the end of the year.  

Payment will happen upon relicensing.  

All contributors are again asked to give their approval to a  
relicensing. Only the ones who already gave their approval without  
conditions and have not contributed more code since then theoretically  
do not need to approve again but it would still be nicer if they did.  
The ones who answered to my email by saying something like “I’m OK  
with relicensing depending on the conditions” need to reply stating if  
the conditions described here are OK for them.  

Once we know, how many contributors do not approve, someone needs to  
decide, if the relicensing makes sense. First of all, Michael will  
probably have to agree to replace the parts of non-approving  
contributors. How the final decision is then made, is for the project  
to decide (discussion on ffmpeg-devel?).  

To fulfill all requirements by sponsors regarding invoices and to not  
have everyone split their payments, my company will act as a trustee  
for a part of the money (11075 Euro) and collect it from the other  
sponsors and then split it up to pay to SPI and the individual  
developers except Michael who will receive his part directly from one  
sponsor as the amount happens to be a perfect match. We have not found  
an easier way to achieve this because of tax and VAT regulations (my  
initial suggestion was to have Michael serve as the trustee).  

If someone disagrees with the way the money is split, please speak up  
now. I tried to fulfill the following goals:  
- Reflect the fact that yadif is mostly Michael's code and work  
- Make sure the project as a whole benefits significantly (IMHO, since  
Michael's working on FFmpeg full-time, I think one has to count his  
share as the project's benefit as well)  
- Fulfill conditions by individual contributors with larger contributions  
- Keep it simple  
- Make it as fair as possible  

The last point is of course never really possible and don't bash me  
for misjudging the individual contributions as it is most likely  
because I am not qualified enough to differentiate/evaluate them  
properly. I just hope everyone looks at this and does not feel treated  
too unfairly, thinks it is good for the project and can live with it.  
Let me also add that, should we make this too complicated, e.g. by  
delaying the whole thing because of endless discussions, there is a  
very concrete possibility none of the money will ever reach the  
project because sponsors might look for alternatives and make the  
whole thing fall apart. It was not easy to get everyone to agree to  
such a pragmatic "uncorporate" approach to a thing like this.  

I have put all yadif contributors on cc of whom I do not know that  
they are subscribed to ffmpeg-devel.  

People who have yadif commits (including mplayer before the port to  
ffmpeg, ffmpeg and merges from libav) and are asked to agree:  

Michael Niedermayer  
Baptiste Coudurier  
Stefano Sabatini  
Mans Rullgard  
Aurelien Jacobs  
Anton Khirnov  
Reimar Döffinger  
Luca Barbato  
Clément Bœsch  
Diego Biurrun  
Nicolas George  
Carl Eugen Hoyos  
Uoti Urpala  
Loren Merritt  
Tim Woj  
Ivan Kalvachev  
Joakim Plate  
İsmail Dönmez  
James Darnley  
Daniel Kang  
Paul B Mahol  

I would be grateful for an independent check of this list.  

Regards,  

Robert