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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. Let's Clarify by oGMo · · Score: 5, Insightful
    They took the entirety of the mplayer source, changed the output plugin for OS/2, and released it as binary-only. [...] They tried to pull a fast one on Mplayer using very little or no code of their own. I don't know if you call that imitation, I call it stealing.

    They stole, but this is not what they stole. Using someone else's code is not stealing, since the party whose code is used does not lose their code. Under the GPL, this sort of using is encouraged. After all, this is one of the things Free Software is truly about. So they did not "take" Mplayer's code, or "steal" Mplayer's code, they used it, and that's fine.

    But then, they stole. (If indeed this is what happened... that's what is claimed, and seems to be resolved, and we will for discussion assume it is the case.) They stole from the community the right and ability to reuse and modify the code. This is what the GPL is designed to protect. And this is where we must be careful.

    Code cannot be stolen. No form of "intellectual property" can be stolen by being copied and used. This is not stealing, there is no loss. The loss and theft occurs when the right and ability to modify and use or reuse is taken away. This right is the only thing that can truly be taken away by theft. Let us all beware of such things.

    --

    Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage

    1. Re:Let's Clarify by unformed · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Under the GPL, this sort of using is encouraged.

      Correct. While complying with the license. By not releasing the source, their right to use the source was gone, and the effectively stole.

      Look at this way: You walk into a car dealership and take a car out for a test drive. Fine, right? There's nothing wrong with that; it's fully legal. Now what if you don't come back? That's grand theft. Try telling the judge you were just "test-driving" the car all the way to Mexico.

      If license violation can be proved to be intentional, that would be considered stealing. Period. (Again, assuming the GPL holds up in court.)

  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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