Re: [Tracker] Can I write a proprietary plug-in to extract meta data from a private file format?

[Martyn Russell <martyn lanedo com>]

On 01/12/10 14:48, Lin, Mengdong wrote:
> We met this license issue because we want to support OMA DRM. And we
> hope to write an extractor plug-in to handle this DRM file format.
> OMA DRM adds an encryption wrapper outside the original media
> content. The rich meta data can only be extracted after decryption.
> Unfortunately, the DRM decryption library is proprietary and so the
> plug-in linked against it cannot be GPL.
>
> In addition, there is a GPL GStreamer extractor plug-in. There may be
> the same license issue when using it on DRM-protected files, because
> GStreamer plug-ins that support DRM are usually proprietary. So, GPL
> and proprietary components will coexist in the same process.
>
> If tracker-extract and released plug-ins could be re-licensed to
> LGPL, same as GStreamer, it would be very helpful for DRM support.

If you mean the "GStreamer" plugin for Tracker, then it should be 
doable. If you mean GStreamer itself, you would have to talk to them 
about that.

> Third-party can support multi-scheme DRM by implementing different
> proprietary plug-ins, without contradiction to GPL.

I see.

--
Regards,
Martyn