On Wed, Jun 3, 2026 at 10:31 AM Artur Frenszek-Iwicki via legal
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Hey all,
>
> I'm currently working on getting SDL3_mixer into Fedora. [0]
> While doing the packaging work, I noticed that SDL_mixer bundles
> timidity for MIDI playback. [1]
>
> The README file attached to the sources says:
> > If you'd like to continue hacking on TiMidity, feel free. I'm
> > hereby extending the TiMidity license agreement: you can now
> > select the most convenient license for your needs from (1) the
> > GNU GPL, (2) the GNU LGPL, or (3) the Perl Artistic License.
> This statement is unfortunately a bit ambiguous, since it does not
> mention which versions of the licences the author had in mind,
> and the only license text attached is the Perl/Artistic one.
>
> Digging through git history, one can see that the bundled code dates
> all the way back to the initial git commit, hence at least to 1999,
> i.e. before GPLv3 and LGPLv3 were published (2007). One can also find
> commits directly mentioning GPLv2 or later. [2]
>
> Getting to the point - can we assume (L)GPLv2 here?
> This would make the applicable license tag be:
>   "GPL-2.0-or-later OR LGPL-2.0-or-later OR Artistic-1.0-Perl"
> Which, looking at the allowed license list, seems okay for inclusion
> in Fedora.

In this case, based on this information, I'd assume this is correct
(assuming that `Artistic-1.0-Perl` is the correct version of the
Artistic license here). It looks like the license was originally
GPLv2-or-later and got broadened to include the other licenses, and in
that context I would not think interpreting "GPL" as
`GPL-1.0-or-later` is likely to have been what was intended.

Richard



>
> For extra context, the older SDL_mixer packages (SDL_mixer, SDL2_mixer)
> do not make note of timidity's license in any way. While SDL2_mixer
> has "Provides: bundled(timidity)", SDL_mixer doesn't even do that.
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Artur FI
>
> [0] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2454358
> [1] https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL_mixer/tree/release-3.2.4/src/timidity
> [2] 
> https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL_mixer/commit/db1013fd0aeb884fcae21480a75dfa60e1ac2ce1
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