[FFmpeg-devel] full swscale relicensing to LGPL

[Michael Niedermayer]

On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 11:53:13PM -0400, compn wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Mar 2009 04:10:37 +0100, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> >On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 08:58:46PM +0100, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> >> Hi
> >> 
> >> A company is apparently offering 20KEUR to have all of swscale relicensed
> >> under LGPL.
> >
> >This is apparently false, they changed the offer.
> >They dont need swscale, rather they want to donate to the main developers,
> >without any specific development request or focus.
> >They also want to know how to get off the hall of shame
> 
> i can see the linuxhater/slashdot headline now:
> 'ffmpeg blackmails company for 20,000 euros'

Blackmail is hard considering that i refuse to take the money from them.
And they never stoped offering it ...

Besides dont forget its not their money this is stolen money that they
got by illegally selling our code.


> 
> would a document explaining the many types of ffmpeg license violations
> and how exactly to remedy them be useful? we could point at said
> document and say 'you violate #2, please read this doc and it will
> explain how to fix'.
> 
> i know asking people to read the lgpl is the current method. but from
> the correspondence i've seen on the tracker, it has a high failure (low
> understanding of technical lawyer speak) rate.

The correct way is to send people a letter from a lawyer, they will then
deal with this with the needed seriousness that a commercial copyright
violation needs.
Long time ago i belived there are people who do this by mistake and are
poor near innocent students who just didnt know better, iam starting to
doubt this.
a company that cant check a license against what they are doing
when they are told they violate it are in the wrong business IMHO.
You cant commercially distribute software under a license you didnt
read or understand.


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

I have often repented speaking, but never of holding my tongue.
-- Xenocrates
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