[MPlayer-dev-eng] MPlayer licensing [and lotso other stuff as I'm typingSat Nov 24 12:52:16 2001

[Gábor Lénárt]

Hi!

On Sat, Nov 24, 2001 at 12:59:43PM +0200, Arpi wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> > It's the Question that drives us, Felix Buenemann :
> > > IMHO we should really start clearing mplayer licensing and make it visible to 
> > > everyone.
> > After seeing these slashdot dorks (who knows, maybe _they_ are the majorty..)
> > I thought the exact same. :(
> > 
> > 
> > > 1. Do we want to make it fully GPL?
> > Should be.
> Why? As you see, being non-GPL helps us more now :)
> (as they can't use demuxer code in os2 version as its' non-gpl)

:)
Maybe the whole MPlayer (demuxer too) should be licensed with 'MPlayer license'.
'Basically GPL', but do not distribute as binaries and do not steal the source
without giving enough credits :)

> > > IMHO the best thing is to rule out external non-GPL code from mplayer and 
> > > make it fully GPL, because then we can be fully assured of our code being 
> > > protected by it and with it by the FSF.
> > Agreed.
> Disagreed.

Agreed, with some points, I will desribe later in this letter.
However, IMHO opendivx and decore directories should be removed.
Arpi, can you do that with the current state of source? If no, what are
the problems?

> > > Ok I know you think now: But WTF then with binary packages? Yes, we cannot 
> > > prohibit them anymore then, but we can still deny bugreports and discourage 
> > > binary packages.
> > Yes :/
> No.
> Until we make it possible to create usefull binary packages, we shouldn't
> change the license. And after it's done, i'm unsure it should be GPL. maybe
> other licenses (BSD?) are better for our needs.

And why? You can label MPlayer as GPL. It's NOT a license issue that we
won't accept bugreports from binary distributed versions.

Or at least, imho MPlayer should be READY to change to fully GPL. I mean,
demuxer code and other parts (copyrighted by Arpi) can be changed to GPL
any time when Arpi wants to do it. Other GPL parts are already GPL :)
So only non-GPL, and non-Arpi codes :) should be thinking on. The advantage
of 'ready to be GPL state, but it's not GPL at the moment' is creating
MPlayer license, and IF we have run time plugins and so on (so removed
compile time restrictions of features and optimizations) we can EASILY convert
MPlayer into full GPL.

I think now we should try to have only GPL and Arpi licensed parts inside
MPlayer (or other parts as well whose authors are agreed with licenses of
GPL). MPlayer license should be something 'it's GPL, but binary distribution
is not allowed'. If we can reach this, we can make MPlayer GPL at ANY time
without ANY work than rewriting license information :)

> > IMHO _we_ should create our own rpm/deb packages, and patch it (like when
> > segfault or sig, inform users about the advantages of recompiling, RTFM ;)
> > etc).
> yes.

Maybe we can write scripts to compile mplayer daily (from CVS) for some CPUs
and pack them into deb,rpm ...
Of course with a BIG red alert: 'we can't support that versions' and so.

> > Patch binary mplayers to contain a certain strings (v0.60-BINARYBUILD) which
> > can be (?) filtered from mailman ;) (when included, ofcoz..)
> most of current users (who are able to compile it) don't include it.
> why do you expect it from apt-get install lamers?

Maybe we CAN build DEB packages with the source, and self-running configure
on installation (but this would need lamer-proof dependency detection, like
printing: install that fuckin' libgtk1.2-dev package to have GUI ... or even
call apt-get install ;-) The problem is that if MPlayer is packed (in source
/self-compilation) and will compile itself into full featured MPlayer, it
will depend many-many '-devel' packages. OK, lamers would shut up, and we will
put ALL of libraries into dependency info of package which is required by
MPlayer for all functions :)

> > > Btw. we should remove stuff like the "GPL sux" from our public homepage, this 
> i agree
> and it was put out without my permission...

Ehhh. Gabu, PLEASE remove it. It's a point that Arpi said something similar
on an iRC channel of us, but imho he doesn't like it to be placed on HP ...

> > > better ways to say that other people did something bad, without insulting 
> Agree. You should remove all these news entries, and display only one
> describing facts and current status of warpvision thingie.
> And current news entry is bad, because our problem is not (only) hiding the
> source, it's hiding the copyright.

Yes. We should stop flame with WarpVision guys, and coding instead :)
Of course SOME info could remain about problems with WarpVision ... but not
a whole flame-thread, please ...

- Gabor