[FFmpeg-devel] full swscale relicensing to LGPL

[Diego Biurrun]

On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 12:43:17PM +0100, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 11:05:50AM +0100, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> theres also a difference between
> using pirated software
> non profit distribution of pirated software and
> commercial distribution of pirated software
> 
> we all know that of course, i just wanted to mention it again because it hasnt
> been here. Theres a big step from a poor student using warezed stuff to
> one sharing with their friends to one
> commercially selling the stuff large scale.
> to one
> commercially selling the stuff large scale and pretending to be not able to
> read a few pages legal license text when told that they are in violation.

There's also a difference between just clicking "I accept" when
presented with a EULA and signing a work contract without reading it.

People seem to accept ploughing through tax regulations,
which are infinitely longer and more complicated than the GPL.
There is no excuse for companies to ignore licensing terms.

> > > 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.
> 
> That reminds me that i havnt yet read or signed that SFLC text, anyone
> mind to post the link or mail address or what it was again?
> originally i didnt read/sign because of lazyness and general dislike of
> having to make sense of such stuff and belive in large scale innocence

*sigh*

http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2008-November/056454.html

Diego