I'm working on a custom version of Blender and intend to distribute it. Since Audacity can't include ffmpeg due to software patents, this gives me concern about including ffmpeg with my distribution of Blender. Playing videos is crucial for my purposes, especially in the game engine. Likewise, exporting videos is potentially crucial. Does Blender do something special with ffmpeg to prevent patent issues, besides the foundation being based in Europe? I live in the United States, which makes me very wary of software patents. I'm probably even over-concerned about making a feature that looks anything like what somebody might have a patent on. Not sure if just hosting the site in Europe would provide any legal protection. I should add that my distribution is designed to compete with Powerpoint, so I wouldn't want any easy targets for their legal department if Blendshow(my distribution) becomes successful. I think LibreOffice Impress implements ffmpeg in a similar way, so maybe I'm just looking too deep into Audacity's reasoning for not including it.
Pre-emptive acknowledgement of disclaimers: I understand that most likely none of you are lawyers and I should pay a lawyer more than I have if I expect a reliable answer. _______________________________________________ Bf-committers mailing list [email protected] http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
