[MPlayer-dev-eng] Re: MEncoder license inquiry

[Jason Tackaberry]

Hi Stanley,

On Fri, 2006-08-04 at 23:57 +0800, yichun.huang at kodak.com wrote:
> I'm not putting any code of MPlayer/MEncoder into my library. It is still 
> in the form of an executable binary file. My library invokes MEncoder (I 
> patched MEncoder to let it stream out audio data through a pipe to my 
> library), monitor it and read statistics from the console. So is it 
> correct that this won't break GPL, as long as my patch on MEncoder is 
> published?

This would be valid under the GPL, which prohibits non-free software
linking to GPL software, but doesn't preclude non-free software invoking
a standalone, GPL-licensed executable.

However, you must make your patch to mencoder available in source form
to anyone who requests it, and the patch must be licensed under the GPL.

Cheers,
Jason.