[FFmpeg-devel] GOM Player on the Blacklisted Projects

[Francois Oligny-Lemieux]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 6:29 AM, Diego Biurrun <diego at biurrun.de> wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 09, 2008 at 07:59:00PM -0400, Francois Oligny-Lemieux wrote:
> >
> > I have good news!
>
> I have good news as well: I was perfectly aware of all these issues.


So do you agree that asking for diff is not sufficient for to meet any GPL /
LGPL requirement? If you ask for it, it should be advertised as to satisfy
"ffmpeg team" in general instead of FFMpeg licensing terms (which are
GPL/LGPL).


However:
>
> - The GOM people were never in compliance with any interpretation of the
>  LGPL.
> - You can always *ask* for whatever you want and interpret compliance as
>  a sign of goodwill.
> - The GPL v2 / LGPL 2.1 does not feature a clause about restoration of
>  distribution rights.  Once you break the license, those rights are
>  permanently lost.  The only way to get them back is to petition the
>  copyright holder(s), i.e. us.  We can ask anything in return for this
>  and are under no obligation to restore the rights at all.
>
> <https://lists.mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/ffmpeg-devel>
>

Just to state the problem (so everyone is aware of it): If someone takes the
GOM's modified ffmpeg library, incorporate it in their project and modify
it, there will be no indications that the files ever came from GOM and it
will break the lineage that LGPL 2.a tries to achieve. The guy will modify
two files (for example) and put notices of modifications on the top of those
two files, but then he will appear to be in breach of LGPL 2.a because there
are another dozen files modified by GOM not carrying any notice of
modifications and you guys will have to go a second time in the
(blacklist/legal) process with this new guy.

Anyway feel free to ask anything you want, I just wanted to point out that
it is easy to think that you ask for diff as being something towards
complying with LGPL. If it's just me that sees that then I'll shut up.

Thanks,
Francois