This was forwarded to me by a freeamp developer. He said that mpg123
contains GPL'd code, but its license prohibits non-free use.
Anyone know what the legal status of mpg123 is?
Ben
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--- Start of forwarded message ---
Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1998 22:30:26 -0700
From: Jason Dale Woodward [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Ben Gertzfield [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: debian freeamp package
References: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Ben-
Thanks for the info on the Debian rules, and that there are, sorta,
two distributions. I've been a RedHat guy for a while. Debian has
been tempting me recently though... probably when I get a new machine
I'll give it a go.
I did look more closely, however, at the docs distributed with mpg123
and noticed that he states in his README:
'In the current layer3.c I'm using a DCT36 from Jeff Tsay's
([EMAIL PROTECTED]) maplay 1.2+ package. His code is
under GPL ..'
This (along with the non-commercial usage policy) is basically what
turned my company off to using it, and prompted us to do our own. I
don't believe he is legally allowed to do this (without Jeff Tsay's
permission, which he doesn't state he has).
Thanks for your input!
jason
On Fri, Oct 09, 1998 at 06:04:38PM -0700, Ben Gertzfield wrote:
Jason == Jason Dale Woodward [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Jason Ben and Paul- We just released v0.5 of FreeAmp. Its now
Jason the fastest GPL MP3 player available. We now feature
Jason mpg123 command line compatability. Tres Cool :)
Neat! I'll package it up. :)
Jason Not to be a sour puss or anything (and, of course, to
Jason advance FreeAmp), in light of the recent Debian and KDE
Jason things, I think you should reevaluate maintaining an mpg123
Jason package. Their license does not allow (necessarily)
Jason commercial use, which I believe violates the Debian Free
Jason Software Guidelines.
mpg123 is in the non-free Debian distribution, which is perfectly
fine.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~]% dpkg --status mpg123
5:54PM
Package: mpg123
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: non-free/sound
Installed-Size: 162
Maintainer: Paul Haggart [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Version: 0.59o-2
Depends: libc6
Description: MPEG layer 1/2/3 audio player
Mpg123 is a fast, free and portable MPEG audio player for Unix. It supports
MPEG 1.0/2.0 layers 1, 2 and 3 (those famous mp3 files).
.
For full CD quality playback (44 kHz, 16 bit, stereo) a Pentium,
SPARCstation10, DEC Alpha or similar CPU is required. Mono and/or reduced
quality playback (22 kHz or 11 kHz) is even possible on 486 CPUs.
Non-DFSG software can be a part of Debian, it just cannot be a part
of the 'main' distribution of Debian.
KDE is another kettle of fish; it cannot be distributed in binary form
*at all* with its current license. They also take other people's GPL
code and fold in a QT interface, which is a violation of the GPL.
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--- End of forwarded message ---
