Include MPlayer in beta?
Bryan W. Headley
bwheadley at earthlink.net
Wed Sep 17 20:05:27 UTC 2003
William Hooper wrote:
> Bryan W. Headley said:
>
>>William Hooper wrote:
>>
>>
>>>b) MPlayer is saying it is GPL. If he decides to try to use patents to
>>>prevent distribution it is no longer GPL (see mp3 discussions).
>>
>>Are you saying that patenting something in a product retroactively
>>revokes the GPL license for all prior releases?
>
>
> The *prevent distribution* part is the issue. I read his comments to mean
> that whatever software was to be patented wasn't in there yet. The mp3
> problem comes about because the patent holder wants a license for
> commercial use, thereby limiting the distribution.
More than that, there's licensing fees they'd like to collect.
> Granted the mp3 issue (patent holder is not the author) and this issue are
> different, but the basic principal is the same.
Yes and no. Given the mplayer author's desire for a full player, does he
consider removing mp3 en/decoding "crippling" the package? What I don't
know is whether mp3lame ffmpeg opendivx avoids the patent issue...
--
____ .:. ____
Bryan W. Headley - bwheadley at earthlink.net
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