[MPlayer-dev-eng] Relicensing MPlayer or parts of it to LGPL

[Michael Niedermayer]

Hi wm4

On Sun, Dec 27, 2015 at 03:47:48PM +0100, wm4 wrote:
> I'm maintainer of mpv, a MPlayer fork. One of the changes in mpv was
> turning the slave mode interface into a library (libmpv), which
> replaces the stdin/stdout parsing slave mode MPlayer uses.
> 
> One problem with this is that it forces every client to be GPL. libmpv
> basically exhibits the slave mode interface as API, but since the
> application code actually links to it, and the player runs in the same
> address space, the GPL technically applies (in my interpretation).
> 
> To avoid this, I'm thinking of relicensing mpv to LGPL 2.1 (with the 
> "or later"). While many things have changed in mpv compared to MPlayer
> (and many parts have been rewritten or removed), much of its core is
> still based on MPlayer, and I need agreement from the original authors
> of the code.
> 
> I'm thinking it would be beneficial for MPlayer as well to relicense
> parts to LGPL (or all of it, if enough contributors can be reached).
> Alternatively, I'd just ask for permission to relicense the affected
> source files in mpv.
> 
> Would there be any welcoming or opposing to such a move from MPlayer
> developers?

I agree to relicense code to which ALL of the following applies to
LGPL v2.1+
* Iam the author of the code in question (obvious requirement)
* The code is in current mplayer git head or in a past mplayer
  revission from which a major past mplayer fork started
* The code was not moved or copied to FFmpeg or removed from mplayer
  prior to today
* the core of MPlayer or one of its major forks is actually relicensed
  to LGPL

I assume this should be sufficient to relicense code iam the author of
that is and should be in mplayer or mpv to LGPL without relicensing
anything else. Thats the idea at least

I also would expect that companies who benefit from such relicensing
would give back to the community and authors. Though theres of course
nothing i could do to enforce that ...

Thanks

[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

Let us carefully observe those good qualities wherein our enemies excel us
and endeavor to excel them, by avoiding what is faulty, and imitating what
is excellent in them. -- Plutarch
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