Re: GNOME-media on the road to 2.4.0

[Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net>]

On Wed, 2003-08-13 at 15:59, Brian Cameron wrote:
> 
> Bastien:
> 
> > Read again the e-mail Havoc sent you, and think before sending an
> > answer. You're only spreading misconceptions.
> 
> Wouldn't it be appropriate to share Havoc's perspective on this
> public mail alias as well?  Since I was asked to bring up this issue

Here is the answer Havoc sent:
"
If a proprietary or patent-licensed mp3 plugin is clearly
independently written (does not contain gstreamer code) and gstreamer
only accesses it via generic, well-defined interfaces it would use to
access any other plugin, then the plugin may not be a derived work of
gstreamer and thus the GPL does not apply.

If you were to use gstreamer code in the plugin, or create interfaces
between the plugin and gstreamer that were specific to your plugin or
specific to mp3, or something along those lines, your plugin might
become arguably a derived work.

The plugin itself definitely can't be GPL; it has to be something 
that doesn't conflict with a patent license.

You should probably ask your lawyers though...
"

Seems pretty clear to me.

> by Christian Shaller of the gstreamer team, any misconceptions I
> am sharing are misconceptions that are held by at least some of
> the gstreamer team as well.  In other words, I am not trying to
> be a loose cannon.  I am trying to help the gstreamer team to 
> address an issue that they consider to be serious.  Christian did
> not have time to email the list, so he asked me to do so for him.
> 
> My understanding is that these concerns were highlighted during
> a conversation that the gstreamer team had with RMS.  While I
> understand that RMS may have a strict and convservative view
> of the GPL, his perspective probably does matter since he is the
> author of the license.  Havoc's perspective of the GPL seems
> consdierably more lax, but I don't know whose perspective is
> correct.

See above, you need to ask your lawyers if you want an advice that you
and your company can trust.

> I just chatted with Christian on IRC, and I believe he is planning
> to respond to this thread with more information about the dialog
> the gstreamer team has had with RMS in the past.
> 
> I do not believe I am trying to spread misconceptions here.  By
> discussing this issue in an open forum, I hope to gain a better
> understanding of the issue.  I assume that if I have any
> misconceptions, this is an appropriate place to have those 
> misconceptions cleared away.

Why did you completely ignore Havoc's answer in your response to Iain
then?

Cheers

-- 
/Bastien Nocera
http://hadess.net

#2  0x4205a2cc in printf ("Oh my %s\n", preferred_deity) from
/lib/i686/libc.so.6 printf ("Oh my %s\n", preferred_deity);
Segmentation fault