[FFmpeg-devel] Searching for a ffmpeg BCLO (bastard chief legal officer)

[Michael Niedermayer]

On Wed, Mar 05, 2008 at 01:13:22AM +0200, Ivan Kalvachev wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 7:06 PM, Michael Niedermayer <michaelni at gmx.at> wrote:
> > On Sat, Feb 02, 2008 at 05:02:10PM +0100, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> >  > On Thu, Jan 31, 2008 at 01:31:25PM -0600, Timothy Baldridge wrote:
> >  > > Depending on the work load, I can help. I'm not sure about how many
> >  > > violators we currently have, but I could certainly handle some basic
> >  > > communication. I work as an IT Tech/Programmer during the day, and
> >  > > probably 30% of my day is spent in customer relations, so I can be
> >  > > nice, but I can be a jerk when needed. Especially when working with
> >  > > those who are breaking GPL.
> >  > >
> >  > > So if it's either me or a flaming troll, I'm in.
> >  >
> >  > Well, why don't you grab one of the offenders from our issue tracker and
> >  > give it a go?
> >
> >  Ill write gabu a mail in 48h unless someone confirms that he did send a mail
> >  to one of the offenders.
> >  There are already 8 of them.
> 
> Have you contacted Software Freedom Law Center?

No, I thought diego wanted to do this?


> I would prefer professionals who have actually went in court of law (and won).

I think ive said this already but we need someone from the ffmpeg project to
deal with legal issues, this can be talking with SFLC or with violators and
of course checking which parts of the license is violated.
I seriously doubt the SFLC will download, install and check the software
from the 7 violators against LGPL violations.

Also the SFLC is not a substitute to contact the violators. They are the
step 2 after the violators dont deal with the issues brought up quickly.
As example diego should have passed the issue with saffran master encoder
to the SFLC after 2 weeks instead of talking with the guy for 6 month.
It was clear that that guy didnt take us serious, iam sure he would have
taken a "invitation" to court or just the threat of one more serious.

contacting someone and talking for 6 month -> wrong
not contacting someone at all but sueing him -> wrong
contacting and if he doesnt solve the problem, pass to SFLC -> correct

Gabu has in the past contacted violators and dealt with them in the
appropriate tone. If you know someone else, dont hesitate to throw his
name at me.

Also, as another example take framewave, the issue with the DCT was brought
up and dealt with within a few days. If i would have contacted the SFLC
they likely would have sued AMD just because it looks good for them
(hey AMD violated the LGPL and we got them to comply to it).
You shouldnt base your actions on the assumptation that everything is
happening with full knowledge and intentional.
Its like shooting first and asking afterwards "why and what".

We also would likely appreciate if some company would contact us instead
of sueing first. In the case that some code someone submitted turns out
to be copyrighted by someone else.

[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

Its not that you shouldnt use gotos but rather that you should write
readable code and code with gotos often but not always is less readable
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