[FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] Libfaac not LGPL?

[Paul Kendall]

On Tuesday 28 April 2009 06:08:44 pm Jai Menon wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Paul Kendall <paul at kcbbs.gen.nz> wrote:
> > On Tuesday 28 April 2009 12:48:50 pm Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> >> On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 04:45:37PM -0700, Jason Garrett-Glaser wrote:
> >> > We had some discussions on #ffmpeg-devel and I asked the folks at #gnu
> >> > about this:
> >> >
> >> > http://faac.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/faac/faac/libfaac/tns.c?r1=1.8&
> >> >r2= 1.9
> >> >
> >> > It appears that libfaac, despite declaring itself LGPL2.1, contains
> >> > quite a few licenses... many of which are completely incompatible with
> >> > the LGPL, such as the above.
> >> >
> >> > In theory, it still may be legal to distribute, as the LGPL linking
> >> > exception *may* cover the linking of .c files with non-free licenses
> >> > with .c files that have free licenses.  However, either way, this
> >> > places FAAC squarely under non-GPL territory... such that ffmpeg
> >> > should require --enable-nonfree to link to it.
> >> >
> >> > Thoughts?
> >>
> >> moving it under non free is a good idea, droping it is a good idea too
> >> but i guess people wont like it being droped.
> >>
> >> [...]
> >
> > Please, no, don't drop it! Until ffaac can do HE-AACv2 it is needed by
> > folk that have DVB-T streams. More and more countries are using this
> > format for their digital broadcasts.
>
> I guess you confused between faac and faad.

You may be right. One little letter, such a big difference!