[FFmpeg-devel] full swscale relicensing to LGPL

[Diego Biurrun]

On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 09:46:53AM +0100, Attila Kinali wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Mar 2009 06:21:32 +0100
> Michael Niedermayer <michaelni at gmx.at> wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> 
> Actually, i think it's so common to violate licenses, that very
> few people think about it.

I hear this all the time, but I refuse to accept this explanation.
Everybody that uses a computer knows that it's forbidden to use
"pirated" software.

This minimal, incomplete and confused snippet of information is enough
to deduce that you are not allowed to simply copy, distribute and reuse
arbitrary software without adhering to some conditions or paying for it.

> I know, i'm generalizing, but given that the people at that company
> were nothing special and typical programmers/managers, i'd say
> license violation, especially of OSS programms is so common, that
> the whole economy would grind to a halt if all violations would
> be prosecuted.

That it's common or that everybody else does it is not an excuse.

OSS projects need to tighten up enforcement so that this culture of
abuse is stopped.

Diego