Re: x11amp

[Josip Rodin <joy@cibalia.gkvk.hr>]

On Mon, Feb 01, 1999 at 03:30:20PM -0600, John Goerzen wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 01, 1999 at 10:14:38PM +0100, Josip Rodin wrote:
> 
> > > I don't see why we ought to let some lawyers trying to make a good bluff
> > > scare us.
> > 
> > Fraunhofer institute holds the patent, we shouldn't take any chances.
> 
> The fact that they hold *a* patent does not put Debian in any sort of
> jeopardy.  If anything, it would be the authors; Debian is complying with
> GPL completely.

Well, yes, but we still have to abide by the patent laws, don't we?

> > Debian has been very paranoid to the vague licencing terms of some
> > progs in the past, from what I've seen.
> 
> The licensing terms are not vague: it's GPL.  That's about as solid as you
> can get.

Yes, but the patents and other restrictions fsck up.

> > But that is not the reason why my first guess was non-free. It was
> > the fact that mpg123 is in non-free, and x11amp is (according to
> > the docs) based on it.
> 
> mpg123 is in non-free because of its license.  I did not find any
> documentation anywhere that indicated that x11amp uses any mpg123 code. 
> (Where are you looking?)  Since it's released as GPL, it's free.

$(TOPLEVEL)/README
thx to:
   Michael Hipp (email: Michael.Hipp@student.uni-tuebingen.de)
   Oliver Fromme <oliver.fromme@heim3.tu-clausthal.de>
   for their mpg123 as we use as engine.. they have made an excellent work!

>From the mpg123 licence:
DISTRIBUTION:
This software may be distributed freely, provided that it is
distributed in its entirety, without modifications, and with
the original copyright notice and license included.  It may
not be sold for profit or as "hidden" part of another software,
but it may be included with collections of other free software,
such as CD-ROM images of FTP servers and similar, provided that
this software is not a significant part of that collection.
Precompiled binaries of this software may be distributed in the
same way, provided that this copyright notice and license is
included without modification.

USAGE:
This software may be used freely, provided that the original
author is always credited.  If you intend to use this software
as a significant part of business (for-profit) activities, you
have to contact the author first.  Also, any usage that is not
covered by this license requires the explicit permission of
the author.
+

I am definitely not a lawyer, but that part with 'hidden' part
of another software seems restricting. I guess the x11amp authors
have everything set up with mpg123 authors, I'll contact them
for exact confirmation.

Anyhow, some parts of x11amp should go to contrib/main, some to
non-free, from what I can see now.

--
enJoy -*/\*- http://jagor.srce.hr/~jrodin/