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Mplayer Charges License Violation

Posted by michael on from the showing-feelings-of-an-almost-human-nature dept.

Several people have submitted stories about the author of Mplayer accusing Warpvision of, err, "borrowing" their code for Warpvision's OS/2 player. I have two reactions - one, someone still uses OS/2? And two, something about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery...Update from CD: Hold on there, everyone. I downloaded the WarpVision source and lo and behold the GPL is there in all its free software glory. I think Mplayer spoke too soon, too rashly, or alternatively, WarpVision was just too slow to update thier site. I'd love to hear both sides of this before we all freak out. Further Info: It was pointed out to me (CD) that the MPlayer program itself is not Open Source software (it calls itself Basically GPL, which, BTW, hasn't been approved by the OSI), so in the end this might just be proprietary software piracy. (Yawn)

3 of 249 comments (clear)

  1. GPL issues by peter_gzowski · · Score: 4, Informative

    The update to this story mentions that everything's ok because the WarpVision code has the GPL, but the Mplayer author contends that Mplayer is not GPL, hence the following quote from the Mplayer homepage:

    They also claim to be GPL. They aren't because MPlayer that they modified, also isn't GPL. It has its own license. So that's another lie.

    --
    "Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
  2. Re:MPlayer/GPL love/hate relationship by beable · · Score: 5, Informative

    To follow up, there are HEAPS of files in MPlayer which were released under the GPL. I can't see how the MPlayer authors can possibly not release MPlayer under the GPL.

    Files which contain a GPL Licence statement in MPlayer:

    grep -rn "General Public License" *|cut -f 1 -d :|sort |uniq

    ac3-iec958.c
    drivers/3dfx.h
    libac3/ac3.h
    libac3/ac3_internal.h
    libac3/bit_allocate.c
    libac3/bit_allocate.h
    libac3/bitstream.c
    libac3/bitstream.h
    libac3/coeff.c
    libac3/coeff.h
    libac3/crc.c
    libac3/crc.h
    libac3/debug.c
    libac3/debug.h
    libac3/decode.c
    libac3/decode.h
    libac3/dither.c
    libac3/dither.h
    libac3/downmix/downmix_3dnow.S
    libac3/downmix/downmix.c
    libac3/downmix/downmix_kni.S
    libac3/downmix.h
    libac3/exponent.c
    libac3/exponent.h
    libac3/imdct.c
    libac3/imdct.h
    libac3/mmx/imdct_3dnow.c
    libac3/mmx/imdct512_kni.S
    libac3/mmx/imdct_kni.c
    libac3/mmx/rematrix_3dnow.c
    libac3/mmx/srfft_3dnow.c
    libac3/mmx/srfft_kni_c.c
    libac3/mmx/srfft_kni.S
    libac3/mmx/srfftp_3dnow.h
    libac3/parse.c
    libac3/parse.h
    libac3/rematrix.c
    libac3/rematrix.h
    libac3/sanity_check.c
    libac3/sanity_check.h
    libac3/srfft.c
    libac3/srfft.h
    libac3/srfftp.h
    libac3/stats.c
    libac3/stats.h
    libmpeg2/attributes.h
    libmpeg2/header.c
    libmpeg2/idct.c
    libmpeg2/idct_mlib.c
    libmpeg2/idct_mmx.c
    libmpeg2/mm_accel.h
    libmpeg2/mmx.h
    libmpeg2/motion_comp.c
    libmpeg2/motion_comp_mlib.c
    libmpeg2/motion_comp_mmx.c
    libmpeg2/mpeg2.h
    libmpeg2/mpeg2_internal.h
    libmpeg2/slice.c
    libmpeg2/sse.h
    libmpeg2/stats.c
    libmpeg2/vlc.h
    libvo/video_out.c
    libvo/video_out_internal.h
    libvo/vo_3dfx.c
    libvo/vo_mga.c
    libvo/vo_null.c
    libvo/vo_sdl.c
    libvo/vo_syncfb.c
    libvo/vo_xmga.c
    libvo/yuv2rgb.c
    libvo/yuv2rgb.h
    libvo/yuv2rgb_mlib.c
    libvo/yuv2rgb_mmx.c
    opendivx/idct_c.c
    opendivx/idct_mmx.c
    TOOLS/mp.pl
    TVout/fbset/modeline2fb

    Please explain?

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    ...
  3. Its quite a convoluted story.... by gagravarr · · Score: 4, Informative

    Alas the WarpVision mailing list isn't archived anywhere that I know of, but I'll do my best to sumarise:

    Someone noticed that WarpVision had changed a lot between two versions, doing some things better but some no longer. Someone else then noticed that the debug output was much like that of MPlayer

    At that point, the MPlayer guys were alearted, and decided that it was very likely that WarpVision was an uncredited port of MPlater to OS/2, and also a closed source one. They mailed the WarpVision Developers, and asked what was up.

    The WarpVision guys initially played dum, then said they had only used a tiny bit of code and would release the source later.

    Tempers flared, and a lot of discussion went on between the WarpVision guys and the MPlayer guys. In the end, the WarpVision developers credited MPlayer, and released the source.

    Now, the flame is over who was in the wrong, who needs to apologise, and if the projects should remain seperate, or if the WarpVision changes should go into the offical MPlayer tree. The issue isn't resolved, but the GPL violation is

    --
    This post will enter the public domain 70 years after my death, unless Disney buys another extension.