[Libav-user] Compiling without --enable-nonfree still produces non-free library?

[Hendrik Leppkes]

Hi,

On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 10:16 PM, Soltic Lucas <soltic.lucas at gmail.com> wrote:
> Now I've looked at the audio and video decoders included in my FFmpeg build WITHOUT using --enable-nonfree and I can read that formats like AC3 or MP3 are supported. But both are NOT free (not to mention MPEG-4 and H.264 aka MPEG-4 AVC).
>
> So what's going on? I'm not using --enable-nonfree but the resulting library contains non-free decoders? Am I missing something?
>


As far as i understand, the nonfree option refers to code that may not
be distributed in binary form. This does currently only seem to affect
the libfaac wrapper, because libfaac is based on original ISO MPEG
reference code, and is therefor not redistributable. AFAIK, it does
not relate to patents, only to copyright/licenses on the code
involved.

- Hendrik