On Fri, 15 Mar 2019, Ronald S. Bultje wrote:
Hi guys,
On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 1:55 PM Yufei He <y...@matrox.com> wrote:
Hi
Here is the patch for a new H.264 codec with Matrox m264 card.
I want to bring up again that this library is closed-source. I don't think
FFmpeg should link to closed-source software in its public mainline
version. Matrox is obviously free :-) to maintain their own modified
version as long as they comply with all licensing conditions.
On IRC, we just discussed the following:
- --enable-nonfree was initially intended for dealing sort of roughly with
incompatible opensource licenses, for example AAC encoders or GPL +
LGPL-compatible-but-LGPL-incomptible libraries;
- nowadays, --enable-nonfree is also used for NDI (which Kieran sent a
patch to remove already) and now this.
I would like to request a vote amongst frequent developers (and if you
don't count me amongst that, that's fine) to decide whether closed-source
software integration in general, as well as this one in particular, is OK.
I don't think the system library provision applies here, since you'll be
hard-pressed to find a system with Matrox hardware (it's high-$$$
enterprise stuff).
I think it is a mistake to tackle this from a licensing point of view
because it is debatable what counts as a system library or what counts as
a closed plugin of an LGPL library. Instead of debates about components we
will get debates about licensing. Totally pointless.
Therefore I don't think a generic vote about closed source is a good idea.
To allow or not a certain closed source component is mostly subjective so
doing a vote on a case by case basis seems the most fair to me. We don't
have _that_ many closed source submissions.
When voting, the following can be considered by each voter:
- submitter reputation (past contributions/license awareness/maintenance
capability)
- capability to build the component (headers/SDK price/licensing/NDA)
- capability to use the component (library/driver/HW price)
- component target (consumer/professional/enterprise)
- potentional user base
Regards,
Marton
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