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VLC Core is LGPL

jbkempf.com

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Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#121

Post by sciurus »

twelve45 wrote: post #119
belorn wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

okey, so beyond AppStore and theirs rules/eula/requirements and so on, the goal is to increase third-party contributions from companies? I would be very interested to see some data on that, say gathered over a year or two. Licenses decision really need more scientific approach, and if the main desire from choosing a license is to attract more third-party contributions, GPL vs LGPL is an interesting situation. Have yo…

Most commercial work these days leverage several open source libraries. And once a library becomes part of your core product, it is in your interest to support further development of that library by contributing code, time, money, etc. Unlike other OSS licenses like BSD, Apache, LGPL, etc, GPL makes it impossible to utilize the library in any way in a commercial product. My current company works on some video related…

"GPL makes it impossible to utilize the library in any way in a commercial product"

That's not strictly true. You could license your commercial product as GPL, or (more likely) contact the library's authors and negotiate usage of the code under another license.

Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#122

Post by darkarmani »

endgame wrote: post #17
mikecsh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it a shame?

Because while every piece of free software is a wound against proprietary software, the more liberal licences like LGPL and the BSD/MIT-style licences are a wound against free software: proprietary interests can take free code without giving anything back.

Most people write code so it can be used. They don't care about wounding anything. If the choice is between having your code being used or having no one use it, most people will chose the more liberal licenses.

Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#123

Post by georgeorwell »

bcantrill wrote: post #99

Congratulations to JB and team on completing this Herculean task! I had the pleasure of meeting JB when he and I shared a ride from the airport in Porto Alegre for this year's FISL.[1] When he asked me what I was going to be presenting on, I (not yet knowing anything about JB's work) had some trepidation in responding: my presentation was on corporate open source anti-patterns[2] -- and one of my conclusions was that…

From your second link, why do you think the licenses of DTrace and ZFS have limited their Linux popularity? Aren't their licenses compatible with (read: convertible to) the GPL?

Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#124

Post by arrrg »

mikegerwitz wrote: post #68
pretoriusB wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because while every piece of free software is a wound against proprietary software, the more liberal licences like LGPL and the BSD/MIT-style licences are a wound against free software Some of like like our proprietary software very much, thank you. I wouldn't want to live in a world where there would not have been a Photoshop, a Premiere or a Logic Pro but only their open source "alternatives". > proprietary inter…

> If X was GPL, the company would not have touched it, and would have opted for some other project instead. All those contributions back to the X community would have been lost. It is important to understand the distinction between "open source" and "free software". Open source focuses on the benefits of "open" code and development and how it can create superior software. Free Software focuses on the ethical issues--…

I think the fundamental disconnect here is that many people think the freedom you mention is not some sort of moral right.

I have yet to meet anyone who can convince me that freedoms 1 to 3 should, in fact, be freedoms.

(I do not have a problem with anyone giving her or his software a license that requires everyone to respect those four freedoms. What I do have a problem with is when people are berated for picking a permissive license that, however, doesn’t quite line up with the four freedoms.)

Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#125

Post by belorn »

Fixnum wrote: post #111
belorn wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, GPL do prevent the production of an proprietary video player based on GPL code. Sure, they can produce a video player full of spyware and then give the source of the spyware to their users, but then, that would render that spyware useless as soon a anti-virus got their hand on it. Not to mention, users would avoid the program as the spyware would then be known.

The idea of a nation-state considering itself bound by the GPL is absurd. Only users can keep themselves safe -- developers can't.

The nation-state might consider itself as above the law, but the contracted company who got the job to develop the player might think twice before breaking the law.

Or are we so jaded that we think every contracted company to the army, and every sub-contracted company being payed for a job by the NSA/CIA/FBI regularly go around and breaks laws because the think "hu, why not, my boss is the goverment, they wont mind!".

Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#126

Post by Florin_Andrei »

pm215 wrote: post #29
Nursie wrote: post #12

On a reading of how it was done, I guess if anyone had contributed stuff under the GPL and particularly objected to LGPL relicensing the could probably still make arguments about derivative works... Interestingly there's no mention of dissenting opinions from anywhere. Not that I'm implying that this move is a bad thing, I would just expect if you ask a large enough group of developers any question about licensing yo…

The commit message includes in its list of modules which are not converted: - iOS audio output and video display, because author refuses the license change - Mono, Headphone and Dolby, because author refuses the license change So there is some dissenting opinion.

Rip out that stuff, replace it anew.

Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#127

Post by throwaway54-762 »

georgeorwell wrote: post #123
bcantrill wrote: post #99

Congratulations to JB and team on completing this Herculean task! I had the pleasure of meeting JB when he and I shared a ride from the airport in Porto Alegre for this year's FISL.[1] When he asked me what I was going to be presenting on, I (not yet knowing anything about JB's work) had some trepidation in responding: my presentation was on corporate open source anti-patterns[2] -- and one of my conclusions was that…

From your second link, why do you think the licenses of DTrace and ZFS have limited their Linux popularity? Aren't their licenses compatible with (read: convertible to) the GPL?

At least with ZFS, no:

"Porting ZFS to Linux is complicated by the fact that the GNU General Public License, which governs the Linux kernel, is incompatible with the Sun CDDL under which ZFS is distributed."[0]

See also this reasoning from the native ZFS linux kernel module port:

"In a nutshell, the issue is that the Linux kernel which is licensed under the GNU General Public License is incompatible with ZFS which is licensed under the Sun CDDL. While both the GPL and CDDL are open source licenses their terms are such that it is impossible to simultaneously satisfy both licenses. This means that a single derived work of the Linux kernel and ZFS cannot be legally distributed."[1]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS#Linux

[1]: http://zfsonlinux.org/faq.html#WhatAboutTheLicensingIssue

Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#128

Post by nicholassmith »

emehrkay wrote: post #84
nicholassmith wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iTunes App Store, GPL is incompatible so it was pulled by request, I've still got a copy on my iPad though.

I've downloaded VLC and XBMC when they were both available in the App Store, hod do I re-download? They dont appear in the "purchased" section

Ir they don't show I'm the purchased section they might be gone forever, I kept a backup of the IPA file.

Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#129

Post by pilom »

sciurus wrote: post #121
twelve45 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most commercial work these days leverage several open source libraries. And once a library becomes part of your core product, it is in your interest to support further development of that library by contributing code, time, money, etc. Unlike other OSS licenses like BSD, Apache, LGPL, etc, GPL makes it impossible to utilize the library in any way in a commercial product. My current company works on some video related…

"GPL makes it impossible to utilize the library in any way in a commercial product" That's not strictly true. You could license your commercial product as GPL, or (more likely) contact the library's authors and negotiate usage of the code under another license.

As the OP has demonstrated, "Contact the library's authors and negotiate usage of the code under another license" is EXTREMELY difficult for a project maintainer and would thus be near impossible for anyone else.

Re: VLC Core is LGPL

#130

Post by mindcrime »

sciurus wrote: post #121
twelve45 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most commercial work these days leverage several open source libraries. And once a library becomes part of your core product, it is in your interest to support further development of that library by contributing code, time, money, etc. Unlike other OSS licenses like BSD, Apache, LGPL, etc, GPL makes it impossible to utilize the library in any way in a commercial product. My current company works on some video related…

"GPL makes it impossible to utilize the library in any way in a commercial product" That's not strictly true. You could license your commercial product as GPL, or (more likely) contact the library's authors and negotiate usage of the code under another license.

I'ts not just "not strictly true," it's not true at all. Nothing in the GPL prohibits GPL'd code from being used in commercial products. What is prohibited is using it in proprietary, closed-source products. You can have a product which is both F/OSS and commercial. Ask Red Hat, for example.
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