[MPlayer-dev-eng] working to put mplayer in Debian

[D Richard Felker III]

On Sun, Apr 28, 2002 at 10:47:11AM +0200, Jens Müller wrote:
> D Richard Felker III <dalias at aerifal.cx> writes:
> 
> >> where???????????
> >> what is not gpl?
> >
> > As I've pointed out several times, divx4_vbr.c is derived from
> > OpenDivX...
> 
> OpenDivX has what license?

The OpenDivX license, which is a pseudo-free license with lots of lame
non-free clauses. However, whether divx4_vbr.c is really "derived
from", or rather just "inspired by" the OpenDivX code remains open to
debate. I haven't actually compared the code myself, but supposedly
the OpenDivX code was C++, so I imagine they're fairly different. So,
Arpi may very well be right that there is no basis for claiming
derivation anymore. You should probably look into this yourself.

By the way, libavcodec now has its own internal 2pass code, so if you
really want to play it safe for Debian, it may be feasible to make
mencoder's 2pass support (divx4_vbr.c) so it can be disabled at
compiletime. Since I assume the Debian package won't link to the
(non-free) DivX4Linux, there's probably no need for it anyway. Of
course, we'd need to ask Arpi if making divx4_vbr.c optional is ok.

On the other hand, it could be useful with XVID, but last I checked
XVID still had some OpenDivX code left in it so it wasn't entirely GPL
yet. IMHO XVID is kinda pointless with libavcodec being so good now,
but others may beg to differ.

> Please don't CC me on replies!

Don't worry, no one here ever CC's. :)


Rich