[FFmpeg-devel] Licensing issue with idct_mmx.c

[Etienne Buira]

On Wed, Apr 06, 2011 at 07:18:21AM -0400, compn wrote:
> On Wed, 6 Apr 2011 10:55:37 +0200, Alexandre Colucci wrote:
> >
> >On 6 avr. 2011, at 00:07, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> >
> >> On Tue, Apr 05, 2011 at 09:42:13PM +0000, Carl Eugen Hoyos wrote:
> >>> Alexandre Colucci <alexandre <at> elgato.com> writes:
> >>> 
> >>>> GPL is disable so my binary doesn't contain this code.
> >>> 
> >>> Good (if you want/need LGPL).
> >>> 
> >>>> But the fact that a file containing GPL source code (even if not compiled) is
> >>>> in my repository sounds like a major licensing issue to me.
> >>> 
> >>> Why?
> >>> Please explain the problem.
> >>> (While it is very, very unlikely, I could theoretically imagine a problem with
> >>> the file if you distribute it, but as long as your explanation is "there is
> >>> disabled GPL code in the same folder as my LGPL code", I don't think anybody can
> >>> help you.)
> >> 
> >> i also see no problem with this but maybe i miss something?
> >
> >
> >
> >Thanks for the comments!
> >
> >It will be possible to download my source code and compiled binary. The binary will only contain LGPL code. But I want to avoid to have unused GPL source files in the distributed source code. This might cause a licensing issue (although I am not an expert and you know more about this licensing issues than me). Currently each time I synchronize my sources with libavcodec, I manually remove this GPL file (idct_mmx.c) from my repository. That's the reason I am looking for a better solution (like moving idct_mmx.c outside of libavcodec). If I forget to remove this GPL source file when publishing my source code, I might have some licensing issues.
> 
> 
> 1) ffmpeg is not going to move this file (afaik)
> 2) there are no licensing issues with distributing this file.
> 
> if you wish you can make a script that runs configure and just have it
> do:
> rm ffmpeg/libavcodec/x86/idct_mmx.c && ./configure --whateveroptions
> 
> then when you configure ffmpeg just use that script.
> 
> -compn

Simpler way would be to issue a 'git rm libavcodec/x86/idct_mmx.c',
commit it to your local tree, and do as if the file never existed.