[MPlayer-dev-eng] mpv (MPlayer fork) LGPL relicensing mostly done

[wm4]

Hello MPlayer developers,

mpv is a MPlayer fork, that wants to relicense itself to LGPL. Some time
ago I posted a thread about this on this mailing list, as getting
permission by contributors of code still in MPlayer is required. I
promised to post here when it's done, to give anyone a chance to review
the changes. Also to make sure no GPL code was accidentally relicensed
without relicensing permission.

Keep in mind that none of this actually affects MPlayer. I'm only
posting this here because mpv is based on MPlayer. The relicensing in
mpv won't be enough to relicense MPlayer either - mpv replaced or
removed so much MPlayer code, that relicensing MPlayer using the mpv
relicensing work would take at least 3 times as much effort.

The project is here:

  https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv

It can be built in LGPLv3 "or later" mode with:

  ./bootstrap.py
  ./waf configure --enable-preliminary-lgpl3
  ./waf
  build/mpv

This builds the player with the GPL-only parts disabled. I encourage
anyone to test whether his favorite piece of unrelicensed GPL code is
_actually_ excluded.

(The relicensing targets LGPLv2.1+, but 1 contributor agreed to LGPLv3+
only, so 4 source files are LGPLv3+.)

Here is a list of functionality disabled under LGPLv3 mode:

  https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/Copyright#L34

These parts are disabled, because the authors either disagreed, or were
not reachable, or because I did not try to relicense those parts.

On Linux/X11, the command line player is not really functional in LGPLv3
mode, but using Wayland, or a libmpv application using opengl-cb (like
most libmpv demos in the mpv-examples repo), should work. (The latter
requires building libmpv with --enable-libmpv.)

In a few days or weeks I will make the relicensing final. It will stay
GPL/LGPL dual-licensed, though. The GPL parts will be kept, but are
not compiled in LGPL mode.

I want to thank everyone who agreed to the relicensing. I want to
thank anyone who helped me with this, especially tmm1 and Compn. It
took so long, and I had to annoy so many people. Now it's finally done.