[MPlayer-dev-eng] [PATCH] unrarlib on AMD64

Michael Niedermayer michaelni at gmx.at
Sun Apr 17 19:33:54 CEST 2005


Hi

On Sunday 17 April 2005 17:20, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 17, 2005 at 11:09:06AM -0400, Rich Felker wrote:
> > On Sun, Apr 17, 2005 at 04:37:32PM +0200, Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski 
wrote:
> > > On Sunday, 17 April 2005 at 11:37, Jindrich Makovicka wrote:
> > > > What about adding an (optional) support for rar executable, instead
> > > > of unrarlib? Recent rars cannot be read by unrarlib anyway.
> > >
> > > Because we strive not to require proprietary libs/tools. Though unrar
> > > source is available, the license is not GPL compatible. No rar3 support
> > > is planned in unrarlib, so we just have to live with it or write rar3
> > > decompression routines ourselves.
> >
> > i propose the latter, and adding rar3 compression routines while we're
> > at it. :)
>
> Unfortunately (un)rar 3 has an obnoxious license that prohibits
> reimplementation (under a different license):
>
>    2. The unRAR sources may be used in any software to handle RAR
>       archives without limitations free of charge, but cannot be used
>       to re-create the RAR compression algorithm, which is proprietary.
>       Distribution of modified unRAR sources in separate form or as a
>       part of other software is permitted, provided that it is clearly
>       stated in the documentation and source comments that the code may
>       not be used to develop a RAR (WinRAR) compatible archiver.

IMHO/IANAL this is irrelevant, we did not agree to that license (no signature 
on paper not even a 'i agree' button), so we cannot be bound by it
except maybe thouse who did redistribute that code, but thouse who just 
downloaded it should be IMHO/IANAL able to legally reimplement it

[...]
-- 
Michael

"nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so." -- Elrond




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