#7589: NewTek distributing non-free FFmpeg build
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Reporter: Zeranoe | Owner:
Type: license | Status: new
violation | Component:
Priority: important | undetermined
Version: unspecified | Resolution:
Keywords: NewTek | Blocked By:
Blocking: | Reproduced by developer: 0
Analyzed by developer: 0 |
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Comment (by JEEB):
I think more than just the "distributing a binary with enable-nonfree
configured" part, people are seeing this as an example of where a company
takes advantage of open source components such as libx264 or FFmpeg, while
not keeping it all kosher. It may not have been your intent, but that's
how it comes out when a company producing a blob that is only usable with
enable-nonfree decides to publish a binary that contains useful utilities
covered by libraries linked into it - which are not supposed to be
license-compatible with each other.
To put it more specifically, your SDK is not compatible with GPL, yet
clearly someone felt like having fabulous H.264 encoding through libx264
was something that would "sell" (not necessarily regarding money, that is)
your solution even better. Otherwise enable-gpl and enable-libx264 would
have not been set. Or the clearly manually added x264-related define. And
I don't disagree. Having x264 in a binary with your input reading makes it
much more feasible for various usage.
Now - unfortunately - your own license and x264 do not match up with this.
Your license and GPL are not compatible with each other. You are not an OS
library/feature, and you're not something that at least apparently would
also be source distributable under the GPL (since GPL is viral, after
all).
Of course, now, the fun little thing after you have published a binary
like this, is that I think technically anyone who received this binary can
request the full code under the GPL - including your NDI library. Of
course IANAL, but ┐(´д｀)┌.
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Ticket URL: <https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/7589#comment:14>
FFmpeg <https://ffmpeg.org>
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