[FFmpeg-devel] [DECISION] Project policy on closed source components

[Jeyapal, Karthick]

On Sun, Apr 28, 2019 at 4:02 PM Marton Balint <cus at passwd.hu> wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> There has been discussion on the mailing list several times about the
> inclusion of support for closed source components (codecs, formats,
> filters, etc) in the main ffmpeg codebase.
>
> Also the removal of libNDI happened without general consensus, so a vote
> is necessary to justify the removal.
>
> So here is a call to the voting committee [1] to decide on the following
> two questions:
>
> 1) Should libNDI support be removed from the ffmpeg codebase?

No.

My thoughts (All thoughts expressed are solely mine, and does not represent the company I work for) : 
Open source violation by NDI is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. But removing the libndi plugin from the ffmpeg repository will not address the issue of violation. A willful violator can still distribute ffmpeg binaries with his own copy of libndi plugin(or any other non-free code). 
In this case NDI took prompt action and removed the said binaries from their website immediately. A similar violation was done by Amazon some time back (https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/7214) and we closed that issue as Amazon took down binaries from their website and provided the source code of their plugin(In this case, NDI plugin is already open source). We didn't remove x264 plugin from ffmpeg because Amazon violated the GPL terms. Just because the violator here(Newtek) is the manufacturer of the hardware that utilizes the libndi plugin we don't have to remove it. 
By removing libndi we are achieving the following.
- Punishing the lawful users of the libndi plugin 
- Nothing done to prevent the willful license violation of ffmpeg
- Punishing NDI by removing their plugin from ffmpeg (An inconvenience for them, to maintain and distribute the libndi plugin sources separately)

As per any rule of law, the innocents' rights will have to be protected first. In this case the rights of lawful users of libndi plugin should be protected. The violator will have to be punished without punishing the lawful users. Whatever punishment we come up with should be applicable to all violators, including those who don't have a plugin in ffmpeg repo that interacts with the violator's hardware(like Amazon's example).

Regards,
Karthick

_______________________________________________
ffmpeg-devel mailing list
ffmpeg-devel at ffmpeg.org
https://ffmpeg.org/mailman/listinfo/ffmpeg-devel

To unsubscribe, visit link above, or email
ffmpeg-devel-request at ffmpeg.org with subject "unsubscribe".