[vlc-devel] close source plugin for vlc

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Le Thursday 24 April 2008 22:06:55 Felix Paul Kühne, vous avez écrit :
> Michael,
>
> the common interpretation of the GPLv2 is, that VLC's modules/plugins
> need to be licensed in a GPL-compatible way in any case. However, you
> could publish your plugin under the LGPL (or BSD-like, etc.) and let
> itself make use of proprietary code. Embedded closed-source directly
> in VLC is not possible.
>
> The other way around, thus using VLC inside proprietary apps (like the
> ActiveX plugin inside MSIE), is obviously possible.

It is not that simple. An applications that uses VLC through whatever API, 
with however many layers of LGPL code wrapping, is a derivative work.

Providing the ActiveX plugin is legal so long as you don't provide MSIE too, 
and vice-versa. The GPL only applies to redistribution. As it does not apply 
to usage, you are always free to use VLC with a proprietary applications.

If someone distributes both MSIE (or any applications using the ActiveX) _and_ 
the VLC ActiveX plugin, I believe (s)he would be violating my copyright. I 
don't claim that MSIE is a derivative work of VLC - that would be 
preposterous. But the combination of MSIE *and* VLC is a derivative work of 
VLC.

-- 
Rémi Denis-Courmont
http://www.remlab.net/