[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] LICENSE: remove incorrect statements that leaked in from libav

[Reimar Döffinger]

On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 07:07:04PM +0200, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> This is based on the ubuntu technical committee understanding of
> the libfaac license:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/technical-board/2011-February/000703.html
> 
> That is
> 1. libfaac is not LGPL itself as a whole
> 2. libfaac is not GPL compatible (additional restrictions violate GPL)
> 3. libfaac is distributable (ubuntu distributes it)
> 4. libfaac contains LGPL code itself (stated in libfaac README and other places)
> from above axioms one can conclude libfaac must be linkable with LGPL code
> because where it not, it itself could not be distributed

4) could be based on assuming that libfaac authors would automatically
give you rights beyond what the LGPL does, thus allowing it to be
combined with non-LGPL compatible code.
As to the incompatibility there is in section 6 of LGPL v2.1:
> provided that the terms permit
> modification of the work for the customer's own use and reverse
> engineering for debugging such modifications.

The libfaac license under discussion does _not_ permit you to make
modifications, since any modification that would make the code not
standards-compatible would mean that you loose your license to it.
That is ignoring the fact that if you are pedantic since no software,
and certainly also libfaac, is bug free the code probably never was
standards compliant and thus nobody ever had a license to distribute
it ever, even stand-alone.