Re: avifile
On Mon, Sep 18, 2000 at 10:23:33AM -0700, Erik wrote:
> > The most obvious problem is the fact that library uses closed-source
> > Win32 DLLs. It can be considered to be 'creating derived work' by
> > including these DLLs into GPL'ed code. In other words, library may
> > seem to be 'linked' with these proprietary binaries. That's actually
> > a fringe case - the strict definition of 'linking' does not exist yet.
> > I prefer to think of the DLLs as 'plug-ins', which are separate from
> > main library and voluntary to use. That's why I distribute binaries and
> > sources in different packages - you do not need binaries to compile library
> > and even to run some test programs. One can someday rewrite DLLs using C/C++
> > and thus make AVIFile library completely platform independent.
> >
> > The DLLs themself are freeware - you can easily get them from lots of
> > other places. Their licenses typically do not say anything explicitly
> > about this way of using them. I believe there's nothing wrong in it.
Obviously we can't distribute the DLLs. Well, maybe not obviously, but
I think it would be a very bad idea.
> > This project includes GSM 6.1 audio decoder, which is taken from XAnim.
> > XAnim is licensed as 'free for non-commercial use' - not compatible with
> > (L)GPL. That part needs to be rewritten to resolve this issue.
Is this a plugin? Can you make it one? If so, you could put this
plugin in non-free, and avifile in contrib.
> > The situation with DLLs would require putting avifile packages in contrib, I
> > think, because although they're not formally linked, you get little or no
> > functionality from avifile without them.
Yep, unless someone writes some useful plugin without them...
> > The last paragraph clearly makes it impossible for us to legally distribute
> > avifile, it's like the old KDE/QT1 mess. Does anyone volunteer for rewriting
> > this? :)
No, this is different. Basically, the author of avifile is responsible
for its licence - he needs to include an explicit clause allowing
avifile to link to GSM, then the result will be legally distributable.
But non-free.
Dan
/--------------------------------\ /--------------------------------\
| Daniel Jacobowitz |__| SCS Class of 2002 |
| Debian GNU/Linux Developer __ Carnegie Mellon University |
| dan@debian.org | | dmj+@andrew.cmu.edu |
\--------------------------------/ \--------------------------------/
Reply to: