[MPlayer-cvslog] license wars!

[Diego Biurrun]

On Sat, Dec 22, 2007 at 04:25:48PM -0500, Rich Felker wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 19, 2007 at 01:35:57PM +0100, Aurelien Jacobs wrote:
> > > The LICENSE file is pretty clear about the subject:
> > > 
> > >   9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new
> > > versions of the General Public License from time to time.  Such new
> > > versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may
> > > differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.
> > > 
> > > Each version is given a distinguishing version number.  If the Program
> > > specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and
> > > "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and
> > > conditions either of that version or of any later version published
> > > by the Free Software Foundation.  If the Program does not specify a
> > > version number of this License, you may choose any version ever
> > > published by the Free Software Foundation.
> > 
> > This indeed is pretty clear.
> >  - The program does specify a version number (see second line of LICENSE)
> >  - The program don't specify anywhere "any later version"
> > 
> > => MPlayer as a whole is under GPLv2 only !
> 
> As of present this may be correct since some files may still say "v2
> only". However, your reasoning is utterly idiotic. Obviously the
> LICENSE distributed with the program will always display one
> particular version number; this does not negate the clause of the
> license that says the recipient may choose other versions.
> 
> Applying a license is not just a matter of putting a file named
> LICENSE in the repo, especially when multiple authorship is involved.
> Copyright on sources needs to be documented and the author's licensing
> choice needs to be made clear, e.g. "This file is licensed under ..."
> 
> Historically MPlayer had no such notices, and the whole program was
> just assumed to be under invalid/infringing/nondistributable status
> (in Arpi's original version :) or generic "GPL" with no attention to
> version. According to Diego, whom I specifically asked about this, the
> MPlayer release documentation never specified a version of the GPL,
> while the website did at one point say "GPL v2". The info on the
> website was added by Diego (in recent times, as I understand it) and
> reflected the fact that some code in MPlayer was[/is?] under v2 only,
> not any decision by the team to license the whole program only under
> v2 in the future (in which case older versions would still be
> available under any version of the GPL).

Yes, I added this info because some files were marked as GPL v2,
specifically

liba52/imdct_3dnow.h
libmpcodecs/vf_zrmjpeg.c
libmpcodecs/vd_zrmjpeg.c
libvo/vo_bl.c
libvo/vo_zr.c
libvo/vo_zr2.c

All of these have been relicensed by their authors or with their
permission.  So now MPlayer as a whole is no longer restricted to v2
only by these files.

Apart from that only 

TOOLS/realcodecs/*

are marked as GPL v2, but they are non-essential and not compiled into
MPlayer.  I have had no luck contacting the author, the email address
from back then bounces.  If somebody has a current contact address, let
me know.

I'm not aware of any other code being marked as GPL v2 only.  I haven't
looked at each file explicitly, but I grepped and looked around
extensively.  If I am wrong about this, say so.

Diego