Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] Rhythmbox and our new MP3 plugin

[Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller <christian fluendo com>]

On Wed, 2006-01-04 at 07:43 -0500, William Jon McCann wrote:
> Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller wrote:
> > On Tue, 2006-01-03 at 18:48 -0500, William Jon McCann wrote:
> >>Is there currently a distributor who is shipping Totem (or other 
> >>software with a similar exception) with a GPL incompatible plugin?  Is 
> >>there a distributor who has specific plans to ship Rhythmbox with a GPL 
> >>incompatible plugin?
> > 
> > Well, Novell didn't write Banshee under the MIT license just cause they
> > didn't know what to spend money on :) Miguel also mentioned this in a
> > blog recently. I know there are similar processes going on at many of
> > the other distributions (ie. looking into adding support for non-free
> > formats), but that is not for me to disclose any details on. Currently
> > in the context of GStreamer that means Totem and Banshee as the shipable
> > media players. Personally I would like to see RB being a possibility as
> > it has a lot of nice features currently (love the DAAP support) and it
> > also gives the non-mono distributions a great option.
> 
> Interesting, Banshee is licensed under the MIT license and links to GPL 
> code.

What GPL code? 
 
> > It will not make you GPL incompatible (in the same way the LGPL isn't
> > GPL incompatible) as you are not adding an extra restriction beyond the
> > terms of the GPL. However if you do link to GPL code the value of this
> > clause is of course nill. 
> 
> It seems to me that with this exception we can't link to, add, or derive 
> from any GPL code.
Correct in the sense that if you want this exception to stay in force it has
to cover all the code in question.


> It is a slippery slope that for many has led to the abandonment of the 
> GPL altogether.
True, Banshee choose to go with MIT instead, and we have gone with the
LGPL for Pitivi. It is a question of what you want to accomplish with
your licensing.

Christian