[MPlayer-G2-dev] dual licensing

[Arpi]

Hi,

I know some of you refuse such things by reflex, including me.
But we should consider it in case of g2, at least for the
core code and stream/demuxer layer (at least for main formats).

Why?

There are many companies using mplayer g1 in closed products.
Either by stealing it silently (KiSS etc) or by calling it via
the slavemode interface so not hurting the gpl.
The rest of them just wants to use g1, but for some reason
they can't accept gpl, and we can't accept non-gpl, so they
don't use it (or fallback to stealing code).
Some of them would even sponsor or pay mplayer team/developers
for implementing custom features for them.
(some actually do, who accept the custom changes to be released)

As G2 is planned to be *the* media api (!= CWJ's media-api)
in a few years, we should provide a way to limited users to use
the core legally. They can choose, between free (as beer) under
gpl, or for money under a bsd-like license (which allows them
to link into closed source code).
Even if we refuse this way, only we loose. Why? They will either
- steal code, for free, ignoring gpl
- use other 'products', like libavifile, media-api, gstreamer etc.
  which (may) allow other licensing form for us

I have no experience in such licensing/legal mess, but what I
plan to reach:
- free use under GPL, _or_
- use with a paid custom license, something similar to BSD one
  (allows linking to closed src products, but keep credits)

We don't have to dual-license all of the g2 code/files.
only the core library files (including special modules, like
vo_null, vf_vo2) and some of the basic plugins
(like demux_avi, demux_mpeg, vf_scale, vf_expand etc)
mostly required for any use.


A'rpi / Astral & ESP-team

--
Developer of MPlayer G2, the Movie Framework for all - http://www.MPlayerHQ.hu