Don Armstrong wrote: > > Well, until we were 100% GPL we only distributed the source - which > > is in turn free speech. Thus I don't really see what are you pointing > > at. > The defacto forbiding people to distribute binaries at all whilst > using GPLed code.[2] Okay it seems we must talk about this old topic again - be it. You must see that this was the ONLY way to - staying legal (that bunch of sources was legal because each "libs" were distinctable, but _what license would you have given to the binary?_) - we being happy (people liked MPlayer and came and help developing new features) - users being happy AND not doing a criminal act at the same time (downloaded the sources, compiled and they got the /at that time/ the only reliably working movie player) What if we provided binaries? - missing runtime CPU detection code would have caused SIGILLs everywhere - we would have commited a crime against GPL developers (because the binary just couldn't be GPL, you see) What if we crippled the non-GPL code (Debian-style approach......) - we wouldn't have been #1 - people wouldn't have a working movie player EVEN NOW See? Just try to look a bit further that "they fscking forbid distributing"... These are the reasons why we were pissed of Marillat's packages, and his behaviour. > The open ignorance of other people's licenses, basically daring them > to sue.[3] We didn't ignore anyone's license. The sources were there (and only that), free to be reviewed. > In addition there aren't any indication in libmpeg2 and the other > libraries included in mplayer as to what changes have been made to > them, as required by the GPL's Terms and Conditions... section 2, > subsection a: Ehh ;) Would you like an >500k diff included in the libmpeg2/ dir? :))) > $ diff MPlayer-0.90rc1/libmpeg2 mpeg2dec-0.3.1/libmpeg2/|wc -l > 5715 See? We won't provide diffs, as long as both sources are in close vicinity. Also: our libmpeg2 is NOT 0.3.1! It's a modified 0.2.x . The reasons it is modified: - libmpeg2 in itself couldn't fit to MPlayer's features/architecture - ask A'rpi, he knows better than me :) (but he _does_ have good reasons for doing things - hell, he wrote the first really working movie player..) The reasons why we are still not using 0.3: - it unfortunately contains a built-in MPEG demuxer before the MPEG codec, and it's very hard to remove.. We (as everyone else) have our own MPEG decoder, so we'd need only the codec. We plan a merge though, later. But we won't include diffs :) > [This isn't exactly fair, but I kind of doubt that there haven't been > any changes to the libmpeg2 source... and more importantly, there are > files normally distributed with mpeg2dec that are not included with > Mplayer-0.90rc1.] Well I highly doubt that every program in Debian (that uses modified libs) includes diffs.. :) But: - if this stops you from including MPlayer in Debian, it's better that way - MPlayer's Debian maintainer could provide a diff. > However, I'm not sure if there is anyone crazy enough to package it, > wander through the morass of -legal that needs to be done, Well since xine is already in debian, I don't see any reason why MPlayer shouldn't be. (xine is also using libavcodec/ffmpeg [the core of all media activity on unix AND non-x86...], which is the thing with the most questionable legality.. But if you cut it, neither movie player will be able to play anything :))) So live with it. > If the mplayer developers and/or debian developers wish to prove me wrong, by > all means, do so. Success? -- Gabucino MPlayer Core Team "not sure how we will proceed here - xine's potential in the video processing field is imho so great that i certainly don't want to miss the chance to work into that direction." - Guenter, xine developer
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