Re: [Muine] Re: GStreamer Relicensing

[Sean Egan <seanegan gmail com>]

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 14:41:56 -0800, Tamara <foxxygirltamara gmail com> wrote:
> I don't really understand how GStreamer license affects us. It doesn't
> affect us that  Gtk+ is licensed under the LGPL so why should it
> affect us that GStreamer is? I don't understand why "the plugin nature
> of GStreamer" is a problem.

When Muine is linked dynamically against GStreamer, and GStreamer is
using a non-Free plugin, that non-Free plugin is part of the same
process space as Muine.  This makes Muine non-Free.

GTK+ is LGPL, which can be linked against Muine with no problem. 
Although it's not GPL, the source and all "four freedoms" are
available to it.  As soon as you start linking non-Free wma codecs,
you introduce code to the process space for which source is not
available, modifyable, or freely redistributable.

I'm not sure exactly how much of my patch Jorn rewrote and
subsequently if my opinion matters at all, but I'd rather see Muine
stay vanilla GPL.

People who wish to use wma can load the wma plugin to GStreamer
without breaking the GPL which allows unrestricted use. Loading a
plugin is probably considered a "modifcation," and the GPL only
restricts modification provided the modification is then distributed.

While keeping the license plain GPL will restrict people from
distributing non-Free plugins with Muine, I don't see that it
restricts people from using non-Free plugins.