Hey Brian,
minor minor nit: it's Songbird, not SongBird. (sorry, gotta make
sure we correct those trademarks, ya know? ;-))
I just want to clarify here. Are you talking about the Fluendo
GStreamer MP3 plugin:
http://www.fluendo.com/resources/fluendo_mp3.php
?
If Songbird is distributed as GPL, and it uses GStreamer under LGPL (and
thus converts GStreamer to GPL via section 3 of the LGPL), why would
that stop you from using the Fluendo one (which is distributed via MIT)?
Or is the GStreamer MP3 decoder plugin you're using the binary Sorenson
one referenced in the gstreamer.freedesktop.org FAQ you linked below?
Our current release (0.5) is licensed under GPL, due to our dependency
on VLC for Mac/Windows. For 0.6 we can move to something like MPL since
we'll be moving to GStreamer on all three platforms.
I'm actually refining our licensing stuff now, so it's possible I can
look into adding an exemption like what Totem has - but I just want to
make sure I fully understand all the issues first. :) Knowing exactly
which MP3 decoder plugin you're talking about would help me I think..
cheers,
steve
We "get around it" because our media cores are actually plugins
> I have a question for you about SongBird. Note that we cannot ship
> the GStreamer MP3 decoder plugin with Solaris (even though Sun has
> license with MPEG to distribute this decoder). The problem isn't with
> MPEG, it is with the GPL license.
>
> Many programs which use GStreamer are under the GPL license, and the GPL
> license does not allow you to link with any code that contains license
> restrictions (such as patents that require you to pay fees to use them).
>
> Question #1 in the GStreamer Legal FAQ explains this issue a bit
> better than I can:
>
> http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/faq/html/chapter-legal.html
>
>
>
> Note that totem has the following GPL exception which allows people
> to link in GStreamer plugins which contain IP. So totem does not
> have this issue:
>
> http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/totem/trunk/license_change?revision=4301&view=markup
>
>
>
> However, rhythmbox and sound-juicer are under the GPL and do not have
> such a GPL exception. If SongBird has a better license which allows you
> to link in GStreamer plugins (such as the MP3 plugin), then perhaps it
> might make sense for us to move away from rhythmbox and move towards
> distributing SongBird?
>
> Note this is only an issue for *distributing* code. There is no GPL
> issue for end-users to, for example, download GStreamer plugins that
> require paying licensing fees and add them to GStreamer. These plugins
> just can't be distributed with the GPL programs.
>
> Or does SongBird have the same issue? I hope not. I am not sure we
> want to integrate more programs into Solaris that have such licensing
> issues.
>
> But I am guessing that the Mozilla folks are smarter about this sort of
> thing, since Firefox seems to allow people to link in plugins which
> allow playing of media files (e.g. mp3 files).
--
stephen lau | stevel at opensolaris.org | www.whacked.net
