Dear Debian Legal, We are discussing a possible switch to FFmpeg [1] on Debian Multimedia list and we don't agree [2] on interpreting DFSG:
On 06.06.2015 21:00, Bálint Réczey wrote: > 2015-06-06 20:10 GMT+02:00 Andreas Cadhalpun > <andreas.cadhal...@googlemail.com>: >> That's not how I interpret DFSG §1 [1]: >> "1. Free Redistribution >> The license of a Debian component may not restrict any party from selling >> or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software >> distribution containing programs from several different sources." >> >> I think this applies to Debian Live DVDs. > I'm pretty sure it does not. > I can create a Live DVD which links some existing GPLv3 packages with > incompatible packages and this is nat a fault of package maintainters. > If you believe your interpretation is correct you can ask for > confirmation on debian-legal. Currently libav provides a GPLv2 compatible library in libavcodec56 and a GPLv3+ compatible variant in libavcodec-extra-56. The difference has been discussed on debian-legal in the past [3] and the explanation is also in the *-extra-* package's description: --- Description-en: Libav codec library (additional codecs) Libav is a complete, cross-platform solution to decode, encode, record, convert and stream audio and video. . This is the codec library from Libav (both encoding and decoding). . This package is a replacement for the regular libavcodec56 library package; it contains the following additional codecs: . * OpenCORE Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) Narrow-Band (Encoder/Decoder) * OpenCORE Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) Wide-Band (Decoder) * Android VisualOn AAC (Encoder) * Android VisualOn Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) Wide-Band (Encoder) . Because this package links against libraries that are licensed under Apache License 2.0, the resulting binaries are distributed under the GPL version 3 or later. --- The question now is how we should interpret DFSG with regard to Live DVD-s. Should we stop packaging Libav (and later FFmpeg) in the current scheme because it allows preinstalling hedgewars (GPLv2 only) with libavcodec-extra-56 making the DVD violating the license of the packages or let this be a concern for Live DVD creators? Does creating such a Live DVD really violate the license? (I believe so, but I'm not 100% sure.) Cheers, Balint PS: Please CC me, I'm not on the list Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer and this is not a legal advice. [1] https://wiki.debian.org/Debate/libav-provider/ffmpeg [2] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-multimedia-maintainers/2015-June/044820.html [3] https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2012/02/msg00017.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/CAK0Odpx=osKAuYiHCgTZYW_MyH2TiOXcX=wg4ynhg30mnju...@mail.gmail.com
