[MPlayer-dev-eng] MPlayer licensing [and lotso other stuff as I'm tySun Nov 25 20:52:05 2001

[Gábor Lénárt]

On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 08:53:42PM +0200, Arpi wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> > > 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.
> > 
> > If what scares you about GPL is the "stealing" code, BSD allows to take the
> > code, modify it, and sale the modifications in closed_source format, as the
> > guys from russia are doing, even without mentioning a shit about you.
> 
> ok BSD is bad too, in the opposite direction.
> any other suggestion?

You can't find ANY good license ... If you release your software with a license
which allows someone to use your code WITHOUT releasing source code, they will
do. If you want to force others to use your work ONLY within a project which
respect your goals (freedom of your source for example) you will find yourself
at GPL ... Well, almost :) [Similar to your kernel-and-driver problem]

Arpi, think a bit. You were IDEG because you can't compile a non-GPL source
into the GPL kernel. I think WarpVision authors were also upset that they
can't compile in mplayer parts into "their" :) player without releasing
source, including credits etc. (ok this is not exactly the same, but
it's a similar situation). Simply there is NO such a license can be created
which would be good for you. So I suggest use GPL _after_ we solved problems
(like opendivx license included in mplayer).

My suggestion is to release MPlayer as 'almost GPL', let's see MPPL (MPlayer
Public License :). Afaik, the problem conflicting opendivx and GPL (for
example) are solved with releasing mplayer as 'source collection only,
binary release is not allowed or something similar'. So try to make OUR
codes as GPL. But let's release it as 'only source collection, disallow
binary release, basically GPL'. With this move, we will need to eliminate
the few non-GPL things from mplayer and after that it can be fully GPLed
or other as we like.

> 
> > I _REALLY_ would like to know what you, Arpi, have against GPL, since it
> > has allowed you to use great peaces of code for making such a great program
> > that mplayer is. With those projects in GPL you have been able to borrow the
> > code and modify it, improve it.
> 
> but it doesn't allow using non-GPL (but opensource, free) code in GPL prg.
> 
> and you are wrong, more than half of usefull code (codecs, demuxers etc)
> aren't GPL.

What? demuxer is copyrighted by you, you can change its license :)
And codecs are external things so not covered by the license issue.
(well, for example libmpeg12 and opendivx are another topic because they're
included in the source, but afaik libmpeg12 is GPL, and opendix can be removed
in the near future - at least according one of your letters).

OK, imho there WAS a project to ask various authors to allow me to use
their sources inside mplayer. Now let's start a project to try to convert
all of the sources to MPPL and try to eliminate eg opendivx sources from
MPlayer. And MPPL is 'basically GPL, but disallows binary distribution' or
something similar. Then if we wish (no more compile time only feature select
or something) we can change MPPL to GPL with only one simple line: MPPL=GPL ;-)

Well it's hard to write my thinks down :) but I hope everyone get the idea.

- Gabor