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MPlayer Licence Trouble With A Twist
protonman writes "A hefty flame war has broken loose on the debian-devel mailinglist about (amongst other things) the legality of mplayer. The interesting part in this conflict is that unlike in previous alledged GPL violations, the culprit is not the unwillingness to provide the source, but the prohibition of the distribution of binaries, thereby violating section 6 of the GPL: 'You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.' Read also the blurb on the MPlayer homepage."
..is that most people are perfectly content ignoring license issues, as long as the software does what they want it to do.
Most people don't care about licensing. Copying free software, copying closed software, it's all the same.
Can't the guy go two messages without flaming Xine? I just love the usenet 14 year-olds feel.
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
I used to be a total debian advocate until about 6 months ago, when I switched my desktop to a gentoo system. Debian is great, but their ethics get in the way of putting out a first class distro.
In gentoo you don't have to go off and find different sources for debian deemed "non-free" or "non compliant" packages, or go off and download things like the win32 codecs by hand because to *gasp* download them automagically would be a violation of blah blah charter blah blah.
To "win the desktop" linux has to give users the ability to easily get the programs and packages that they need and want to use. If granny has to figure out where to find the URL of the secret package such-and-such, she's not going to get it. If it's done for her, she'll be able to appreciate things.
Sorry to rant, but I've noticed more and more lately how debian's philosophy is getting in the way of me getting the programs I want to use. Yes, I know that I can add suchandsuch to my apt-sources, but why should I have to? Also, while as amusing as the legal flame wars about how paragraph 32 line 8 words 14-18 in the program license excludes it from being included in debian main are, they get old real soon.
I wouldn't have said anything, but under gentoo I type "emerge mplayer" and get the latest version, with all the patches and codecs. "emerge freetype" and I get freetype with the 'in the grey' hack to make things look better, etc etc.
Anyone else think that debian is getting a bit anal in these matters?
rant off....
Once built and optimised for your architecture it does run well, and on my poor little notebook (500MHz PIII), it beats the pants off media player under Win 2K.
Having to build from source is inconvenient, but unless MPlayer is linked statically, I reaaly thing that this is better than installing a prepacked binary.
See my journal, I write things there
That is from one of the mesages in the thread.
I would think that any rational person would be able to see the logic in this. However, apparently there are those that cannot. Amazing.
You see... the GPL throws the source at people who don't give a flying fuck about it (in the case of most end-users), and then followers of the GPL get their proverbial panties in a bunch when someone doesn't distribute the *binaries*. I don't get it.
Actually, more honestly, I don't really care. It's things like this that make Free Software zealots look like idiots in the eyes of the public. That is too bad, but until people realize that software is, well, software, and not some political instrument to stake your life on, these things will continue to occur.
If I'm a developer writing code that I'm willing to release freely for altruistic reasons, I don't want someone else taking my program, modifying it, and selling it for a profit. That's why I'd put it under the GPL.
You're saying you should have the freedom to profit from my work against my wishes.
Jason
ProfQuotes
I have made my way through some of the thread.
This discussion again shows to me how valuable the legal team on Debian are. We do not want free software to end up having legal problems due to ignoring licenses. Unfortunately the checking is hard and complicated work so it is fortunate that we can rely on the Debian team.
Just look at the current SCO issues and be grateful for all Debian do to avoid problems like this.
Dave
The aim of Debian might not be to enpower granny to send email but to provide a totally unencumbered OS.
Which is why it seems improper to insult them as "anal" when they are merely following the letter of their mandate.
Would you call Debian "anal" for say, refusing to distribute car tyres with every download? Of course not because car tyres are not what they do. The same is true for free/non-free. Software is either one or the other for some chosen definition and to blur the lines makes no sense.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
- Either MPlayer adjusts its code and licenses to conform to Debian's rules in order to be added to the Debian distribution
- Or MPlayer doesn't change anything and they don't get included in the distro
So why the flame war? It's Debian's distro, they can set the rules as they like. Likewise it's entirely MPlayer's decision to conform or break Debian's distro rules. And if MPlayer doesn't want to be included in Debian, nothing stops users from compiling MPlayer by source and adding it to their system, right? It's not the end of the world if a program isn't available by apt-get.Obviously if someone wants to fork MPlayer and create a version that is "Debian-able" they are certainly allowed to do that under the terms of the GPL. So I'm not quite sure why everyone's up in arms.
Who is this nebulous "we" that thinks of proprietary software houses as "enemies"? Most software in the real world is non-Free, simply because most companies have no interest in releasing their widget-manufacturing software to the world, primarily because noone has ever asked for it. I've written custom software to track candle inventory; I don't recall seeing "candlewarehousing" as a category in the FreeBSD ports system.
Mplayer is a great program, and has made many contributions to the community and innovations to media applications in general (QuickTime, for example).
I wasn't aware that Mplayer is an Apple product.
Do not forget that mplayer is a powerful tool in our battle against those who would destroy us.
Adjust your tinfoil hat, or grow up.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Hey men!
:(
r /)
;)
What has become of Slashdot? Is it really a non objective flaming pool? Did nobody care to take at least a _short_ look at it before commenting stuff?
I took a _quick_ look. IIRC it's about the following:
1. binary packages of MPlayer in general
2. debian packages made by Marillat
3. license issues of MPlayer (GPL)
4. patent issues of MPlayer
5. why is xine in debian and MPlayer not?
6. Gabu's "stile of speaking"
I (almost) didn't see any objective statement about it so far, just crap.
1. There exist binary packages of MPlayer (see http://www.piorunek.pl/~dominik/linux/pkgs/mplaye
Their attutude is: Better no packages than bad packages as they have to read all bugreports about them (not the distributions). IMHO they're right.
2. They work to get good debian packages, Marillats packages were refused because at the time he provided them, they were illegal and full of bugs. We still get lot of complains by ppl using Marillats packages...
3. The developer really worked hard to get a 100% GPLed software. Many issues (like libmpeg2 and xanim(?)) are solved through mails with the authors.
4. There are mpeg4 patent issues with libavcodec.
5. But: the exact same issues apply to xine!! (e.g. it uses libavcodec too)
6. no comment, just stay objective
What I wanted to say: Please stay objective and don't start to write crap....
> It's scary to see such strife within the Open
> Source community. I'd much prefer, as would we
> all, a focus on our true enemies,
The world isn't black and white, it has shades of every color. Arguments like this, the self policing of the open source community, will in the long run make open source stronger.
I wouldn't have it any other way, sometimes the best way to get a problem solved is to bruise some egos.
That's funny. MPlayer will never go away. It's the only working player that doesn't crash. MPlayer has always worked for me since .1x times Xine has alot of bugs which cause no-functionality/freezing.
My understanding of the GPL is that as soon as that person re-sells one copy of my code, their version becomes freely distributable and the person who bought it can give it away to as many people as they want. As far as I'm concerned, this is good enough.
Jason
ProfQuotes
From the MPlayer home page:
Why does debian-legal think they know what is GPL and what is not better than Mplayer and XAnim authors.
Well, gee, I don't know, why would a bunch of people who study licensing issue on a regular basis think they understand licensing issues better than a bunch of people who are focused on writing code?
Having programmers look for legal problems makes about as much sense as having lawyers review your code for possible bugs.
The mplayer folks are entitled to package and license their software as they see fit.
The Debian folks are entitled to package and distribute Debian as they see fit.
Reminds of the KDE dustup.
That's when I switched from Debian to SuSE.
Glad I did.
Similar options abound for anyone who doesn't like the way Debian does things.
That's right, you can do that if you want to.
Just remember that if you do, your software won't be in Debian. That's ok too. But don't do that, and then also complain about Debian not including your software.
Now, I do respect their ability to code and all.
.HU), seem to have a rather shady side. For one, they come up with these ridicious arguments, making jabs at people and all.
.HU irc server (btw). If a newbie asks a simple question on their mailing lists, they would flame you to death, not only that, they would port scan you, and even try to enter some ports (for what reason? .. also remember arpi is one of the guys responsible for hungarian attacks on irc a few years back).
But the mplayer team (core from
From all this, I feel this is kinda like a publicity stunt, these people want to publicize mplayer by creating this whole cloud of negativity around it. It's simply not cool.
If you've ever posted on the mplayer mailing list, you'd find this attitude at the core. Mplayer developers (arpi and co) seem to think that they are gods, and that everyone else is wrong etc.. They are also heavly into warez and stuff on their
If you read their documentation (earlier ones) you'd see how less they understand the freesoftware movement. When they were not fully GPL, they had all sorts of crap about the FSF and GPL posted all over their site, things that no respectable software developer would even write. These people are simply script kiddies with no respect for the free software movemnet and community (as representated by debian).
I dont understand why they have to make such a mighty fucking issue out of all these things, just make the fucking software and let maintinaers package it as they wish.
Mplayer is very cool, but their ego is a bit too retarded. I hope they learn that they are not the greatest or biggest software team out there. I hope they stop this attitude. Also the posting on their main site seem like a declaration of war against debian (geez?!)
Ziel from the GNome I18N team.
KNOPPIX wasn't made to install Debian, all that Knopper did was include a script (knx-hdinstall), made by Christian Perle, that works reasonably well.
Blow the debian installation into pieces? well, all it does is copy everything to harddisk. For i386. With far less flexibility. If you call that blowing into pieces then imho you don't get what Debian stands for: a free GNU/Linux distribution focussing on security, stability and flexibility, and not having the easiest installer on the planet or shipping broken unstable software.
And about mplayer: it's not the maintainers wanting it, it's the users asking for it :o)
This sig is intentionally left blank
"Arrogance", no. "Intolerance", yes. I think if I were subject to the amount and kind of abuse heaped on them by people who don't agree with the focus that the MPlayer project has, I'd get pretty terse with people, too. Especially people emailling to say "you are just a fucking elitist"...
Think of it this way. Imagine you're a volunteer developer. Now imagine you're ALSO the tech support for the project.
NOW imagine some third party packages your project with their distribution.
Your phone starts ringing. Your email goes nuts. They're all saying "Your program is broken/deleted my files/raped my dog/etc.".
At first it's easy to be polite. "You say it doesn't work? Can you give me a description of what it's doing wrong? Um, I'll need more detail besides 'it doesn't run', does it give an error message of some sort? No? What does it do? Oh, it DOES give an error message. Can you tell me what it says? No, I mean read what it literally says...."
Not only does this sort of thing REALLY grate on any rational person's nerves very quickly, but it's extremely time-consuming to deal with and prevents you from actually DEVELOPING anything.
Having lurked on the MPlayer user mailing list for some time, I find myself actually somewhat sympathetic for the MPlayer developer's hard line on dealing with things like this.
Consider what MPlayer is SUPPOSED to be - the most capable and efficient media player available for *nix systems. This focus has never BEEN "make it pretty and simple", but rather "make it effective". This is an important point - everyone harassing the MPlayer team with demands (and they often are - "you have to make it easier to use", "this software cannot continue like this", etc.) are, in effect, trying to "hijack" the project into a different focus. MPlayer ISN'T XINE and isn't supposed to be. The Xine project IS more focussed on user-friendliness than MPlayer. That's by design.
The friction the MPlayer project seems to attract seems to come entirely from people who think they should change the focus of their project from what the DEVELOPERS want to what the complaintants want. This, to my mind, is silly. Xine is much simpler to use. If "simple to use" is what you want, Xine is the program you want. If you're willing to read some documentation and deal with slightly arcane and very flexible command-line arguments in exchange for broader capability and somewhat better performance, then MPlayer is what you want. Choice is good.
I think the "Xine vs. MPlayer" alleged war is about as real as the "Gnome vs. KDE" one, which is to say, not at all except for a few peripheral folks who THINK there is one. Xine and MPlayer seem to cross-pollinate ideas well enough. The Xine project figured out Sorenson 1 and wrote a native decoder. MPlayer said "great work, thanks" and incorporated the concept into MPlayer (Giving full credit to Xine, as I recall). They, in turn, managed to puzzle out use of windows DLL's to get Sorenson 3 decoding capability. From what I can see, I think this is now in the most recent Xine releases as well.
It's all good. Everyone relax. Nothing to see here....
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
But it has been done -- in Xine.
But Xine doesn't have 20% of MPlayer's features. You can't compare Xine and MPlayer in terms of code base. Still, i'm totally willing to agree that Xine has much cleaner code (i don't really know), but that doesn't prove much. Xine is certainly not more stable than MPlayer.
I stand corrected for the reverse-engineering aspect, though you make it sound strangely easy. Yet I don't see any open-source decoders based on those rev-eng efforts out there, even hosted in copyright-liberal countries. But anyway, f, however, reproducing the scrambling tables is illegal, then there's no perfect solution to this problem. So don't blame MPlayer's people for going to the easier DLL solution then!! All i want is a linux player that plays Sorensen v2 and 3 (and no, Crossover doesn't qualify).
The MPlayer authors are rarely the guys behind reimplementing codecs -- that's what the authors of ffmpeg (libavcodec) do. MPlayer just takes the glory by putting it all together.
You make it sound like the MPlayer authors are just a bunch of code thieves, which is completely untrue. They wrote a lot of the codecs and work closely with a lot of the projects they borrow code from. Everybody knows ffmpeg is not MPlayer, nor is it Xine (which also uses it).
DZM
I would consider the minor GPL violations the least of mplayers problems. What about the numerous video and audio formats they use without proper licensing?
Even if everything is reverse engineered then it would only save them from infringing on copyright but they would still have to pay the technology owners which means that at least mpeg-1 and mpeg-2 are out of the question ($ 2,50 per copy licensing fees). The same holds for several other formats which are not covered under a non commercial license.
I might get something wrong here but why can mplayer (and xine for that matter) use mpeg-1/2 divx, mp3 vivo and several other formats (including wma/wmv) without paying royalties to the respective copyright and patent holders and why doesn't anybody care about this?
May somebody please enlighten me about this issue?
Regards
Jeff
No you don't. You don't get anything. Person A writes program X and releases it under the the GPL. Person B takes program X, adds to it and releases program Y under the BobLicense (which for the sake of argument is not compatible with the GPL.) So now person B is in violation of the license that person A has chosen for program X. Person A can sue person B and force them to either 1) release their program under the terms of the GPL, or 2) stop distributing the parts of program X that they included in program Y. Person B chooses which of those two options they like. You, as person C (or person A for that matter), do not have any rights to program Y. Person A has stated (via the GPL) that if anyone wants to incorporate program X into their program they must extend the rights given by the GPL to a third party. If person B chooses not to do this, then they are not granted the rights to incorporate program X into their program. They do not automatically loose copyright protection for their own work that they incorporated program X into. They just don't have the legal right to distribute program X or derivatives of program X. That is all. No third party automatically gets a GPL license for program Y. The situation resolves down to the point that person B is distributing a derivative work of program X illegally.
The GPL provides the terms that I may distribute code that is covered by it. Those terms are primarily:
1) source code is available
2) whoever wants can redistribute the code with these same rights
3) whoever wants can incorporate this code into their own programs and redistribute the derivative work if they give these same rights applied to the whole work
If I choose to ignore those restrictions, then I don't have the right to redistribute GPLed code. If I do distribute such code, then the original copyright holder has some legal recourse against me. But no third party has any legal recourse. Why do you think the FSF wants people to assign programs to be included in the the GNU system over to them? It's so they can pursue violations.
but unlike djb, the mplayer group utilizes the standard GPL license (probably because they were too lazy to write their own crazy license) and seems to think they can utilize the GPL as a shield for protection of their illegal software.
in short, this isn't the first case of killer-app type software that is written by immature and/or wacky authors with questionable licensing terms (bitchx, qmail/djbdns, glftpd, vision-x, etc.)
if anything, their messages to debian-devel and the retalliatory flames are certainly entertaining reading.
If that isn't good enough then all I can say is, "come on Debian, be reasonable." Information wants to be free but you're trying set all sorts of childish stipulations on that freedom.
Hmm... well, here's the thing. Debian represents the effort to protect that freedom. I agree that it can be a hinderance in terms of getting things one likes to be included, but when the companies and corporations come down trying to enforce one thing or another, Debian can keep their distro "free as in freedom" because they stuck to their rules and licenses.
I guess one can say that they are being reasonable by being very clear cut about it. This makes it difficult for projects with codes of various backgrounds and licenses, but it makes it so that the whole of their distro is clean(legally) and clean(operationally). It helps to keep the ability of the information in the distro to be free.
The stipulations they set aren't childish in anyway. They are the requirements of their distribution, which is that code/software added to their distro needs to be GPL compabitible.
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