[Ffmpeg-devel] overall license review - adding proper license headers

Ivo ivop
Tue Sep 5 17:38:24 CEST 2006


On Tuesday 05 September 2006 16:17, Benjamin Larsson wrote:
> Diego Biurrun skrev:
> > [...]
> > I'll ask you again, just in case: Are you willing to relicense the code
> > as LGPL?
> >
> > Judging from what you have written so far the answer is probably no. 
> > In this case we should go back to plain GPL on that file IMO.
> >   [...]
>
> I dissagre to place it under GPL only, just extend the wording so it's
> less likely to missunderstand it. Otherwise you will remove a feature
> from the LGPL version of ffmpeg.

IANAL, but AFAIK it is illegal to add clauses to the LGPL, except for 
geographical distribution limitations. The license text is copyrighted and 
may not be changed or extended with extra clauses. This is on purpose, to 
avoid having tons of slightly varying and possibly incompatible LGPL 
variations around. So something is either LGPL or it's not. Something can 
not be LGPL for just one project and GPL elsewhere.

As the author/copyrightholder does not want to license his code under the 
LGPL, the only valid option is the GPL.

--Ivo




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