[MPlayer-dev-eng] Re: help on libmpdemux usage (Modifié par Jérôme Cornet)

[D Richard Felker III]

On Tue, Jan 13, 2004 at 09:18:01PM +0100, Jérôme Cornet wrote:
> Le 13 janv. 2004, à 20:18, D Richard Felker III a écrit :
> >
> >Not at all. Someone is perfectly free to make a plugin for a
> >proprietary system out of GPL code for their own private use, but the
> >GPL does not give them permission to distribute this derived work
> >since it is linked (even dynamically) to proprietary code.
> 
> That's the kind of debate i very dislike. So, in your point of view,
> i cannot make a GPL application for MacOS X itself, since the
> application is linked "dynamically" to operating system's libraries.
> Whatever happens if we add link to GPL libraries installed in the
> system then??

RTFGPL! It explicitly makes an exception for OS libs. Since this
exception is included, I think it's very clear that the GPL is NOT
intended to allow other linking with proprietary code.

> I am not a lawyer too, but i think i am right and don't like the
> quick thinking about "is there anything proprietary/not GPL you
> don't have the right to use our code". Maybe Linux is using BIOS
> code under x86 hardware (i don't know...) but BIOS is not GPL so you
> couldn't release Linux under GPL or use anything which is GPL in
> it??

Of course the author can release it under GPL since they hold the
copyright. The question is whether YOU can take SOMEONE ELSE's GPL
code and link it to some piece of nonfree code (e.g. the bios or
QuickTime).

IMO the code in MPlayer is under GPL because it's only supposed to be
used in free software, for the benefit of free software. As soon as
someone uses it in QuickTime to make QuickTime not suck (as bad),
proprietary software benefits and MPlayer gets no benefit. This sort
of situation is what the GPL was designed to prevent.

Rich