[FFmpeg-devel] full swscale relicensing to LGPL

[Attila Kinali]

On Mon, 23 Mar 2009 11:05:50 +0100
Diego Biurrun <diego at biurrun.de> wrote:

> > Actually, i think it's so common to violate licenses, that very
> > few people think about it.
> 
> I hear this all the time, but I refuse to accept this explanation.
> Everybody that uses a computer knows that it's forbidden to use
> "pirated" software.

Welcome to reality!
 
> This minimal, incomplete and confused snippet of information is enough
> to deduce that you are not allowed to simply copy, distribute and reuse
> arbitrary software without adhering to some conditions or paying for it.

Who cares? Nobody is going to find out anyways!
 
> > I know, i'm generalizing, but given that the people at that company
> > were nothing special and typical programmers/managers, i'd say
> > license violation, especially of OSS programms is so common, that
> > the whole economy would grind to a halt if all violations would
> > be prosecuted.
> 
> That it's common or that everybody else does it is not an excuse.

No it doesnt, but it is still true, IMHO.
You'd be surprised what is going on in the comercial world.

An other example of what i've seen recently is that company A
contracted company B to build a specialized electronic device
including software, but gave very little information on how
it should work, as they didnt know how to do it themselves.
Company B build something that they believed does what the
customer wants and shipped it. Company A now claims that it
doesn't work at all and does not adhere to their specifications
and thus didn't pay company B. This hole thing went to curt,
just to find out that company A is selling this "not working" device
and it seems to work rather well...

Yes, this kind of stuff doesnt happen every day, but it's
common enough that each and every company who works as a
contractor has to deal with it once in a while.


> OSS projects need to tighten up enforcement so that this culture of
> abuse is stopped.

Tighten up means to hunt down and sue license violaters, but
this requires time and money.

			Attila Kinali

-- 
The true CS students do not need to know how to program.
They learn how to abstract the process of programming to
the point of making programmers obsolete.
		-- Jabber in #holo