[Ffmpeg-devel] [DISCUSSION] GPL violation by ratDVD?

[Måns Rullgård]

Ivan Kalvachev <ikalvachev at gmail.com> writes:

> 2005/7/31, matthieu castet <castet.matthieu at free.fr>:
>> Gamester17 wrote:
>> > Is ratDVD (www.ratdvd.dk) violating the GPL?, open discussions:
>> > http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/215044
>> > http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=693256#post693256
>> > PS!  I will be supprised if this isn't 'slashdotted' soon =/
>> >
>> well there was a discussion on dvd-devel ML
>> (http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=7525493&forum_id=774),
>> and the dvdnav authors seem don't care.
>> Without them you can't do anything.
>> 
>> Moreover as the GPL FAQ say, you can use GPL applications in your
>> proprietary software if they run as external process. So there'll always
>> people trying to build complex wrapper to profit of GPL software...
>
> The criteria is actually very simple. If the non-free program depends
> on GPL program to work, then they are linked, thus the comersial
> program is in violation.
> It doesn't matter what interface they use and how they are connected.

It does matter.  If the program can use a (hypothetical) drop-in
replacement for a GPL component, without being recompiled or relinked,
there is a dependency only an *interface*, and copyright restrictions
do not cross interface boundaries.

> This also have to say that all MPlayer frontends should be (L)GPL
> compatable.

Creating a player that is stdio compatible with mplayer is fairly
trivial.  Hence, no inherent dependency.

-- 
M?ns Rullg?rd
mru at inprovide.com