[vlc-devel] Re: License Issues/Questions

[Benjamin Pracht]

Le vendredi 21 octobre 2005 à 09:28 -0700, Jason H a écrit :

Well, first of all, a faq about the implcations of the GPL can be found
here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

> I would like to make a Non-GPL Qt interface (not Qt/E)
> for VLC. Under the GPL, I do not think this is
> possible? I would not mindmaking a subset if the GUI
> and making that availible under the GPL, but I would
> like it to extend to some proprietary functions, of
> which I do not think the community would be interested
> in.
> 

Well, If your module depends on the VLC to run, it has to be entirely
written in a gpl compatible license.

> I also see there is an ActiveX version for Windows.
> While I would prefer that I could use VLC on all its
> platforms, for now I could get away with using this.
> However, does the GPL license extend outside of the
> ActiveX server to the software using the ActiveX
> interface as well? If I could to that, then could
> there be other containers made for other platforms? I
> would not mind if the containers themselves, are GPL,
> but I don't want the software that talks to the
> containers to be GPL. LGPL, BSD would work.
> 

According to my understanding of the GPL, the answer is the same here ;)
If your activex module can only run with VLC, it has to be written in a
GPL compatible license. If its functions are not VLC specific, and it
can also be run with some other non gpl media player, things are
different (but you still wouldn't be able to distribute your module
along with VLC in the same package). However, note that BSD and LGPL are
GPL compatible license. But keep in mind that the complete package (you
app + VLC) would then still be GPL. That means that you still wouldn't
be able to link your app with proprietary software, if it is distributed
along with VLC (but it will be allowed to reuse the code in another
LGPL/BSD app, that has nothing to do with VLC, and that link with
proprietary software, or to reuse LGPL/BSD existing code in that
module).

-- 
BigBen

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