On Thu, 28 Oct 1999, Nils Faerber wrote:
> Hello all!
> After some discussions of Lame's license and the use of Lame in commercial
> applications I had some talk with the company I have contact to and they
> changed their interface in order to include Lame as standalone program. This
> should at least end teh discussion about GPL or not for this kind of use.
Sorry to bring bad news:
" 7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you
may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent
license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by
all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
refrain entirely from distribution of the Program. " - from the GPL
If you are paying a license fee then you are saying that this software is
patented. If you say that, then you can't distribute it.
This prevents you (not that you would :) ) from making the software
propritary by making yourself the only source of patent licences for
things contained in the software. Consider, if FhG effectivly suppresses
the Lame developers, then lame wouldn't be free. For sofware to be OSS it
must be free for everyone.
The LGPL has the same restriction, and in this case. It's inconvient, but
it's the right thing.
Sorry you can't distribute lame.
--
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