[FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] Libfaac not LGPL?

[Paul Kendall]

On Tuesday 28 April 2009 12:48:50 pm Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 04:45:37PM -0700, Jason Garrett-Glaser wrote:
> > We had some discussions on #ffmpeg-devel and I asked the folks at #gnu
> > about this:
> >
> > http://faac.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/faac/faac/libfaac/tns.c?r1=1.8&r2=
> >1.9
> >
> > It appears that libfaac, despite declaring itself LGPL2.1, contains
> > quite a few licenses... many of which are completely incompatible with
> > the LGPL, such as the above.
> >
> > In theory, it still may be legal to distribute, as the LGPL linking
> > exception *may* cover the linking of .c files with non-free licenses
> > with .c files that have free licenses.  However, either way, this
> > places FAAC squarely under non-GPL territory... such that ffmpeg
> > should require --enable-nonfree to link to it.
> >
> > Thoughts?
>
> moving it under non free is a good idea, droping it is a good idea too
> but i guess people wont like it being droped.
>
> [...]
Please, no, don't drop it! Until ffaac can do HE-AACv2 it is needed by
folk that have DVB-T streams. More and more countries are using this
format for their digital broadcasts.

Cheers,
Paul