[theora-dev] Cortado license

[Basil Mohamed Gohar]

On 02/17/2010 04:57 PM, ozemale at ozemail.com.au wrote:
> Why does Cortado use the restrictive GPL license instead of the
> friendlier LGPL?  We would like to embed Cortado functionality into
> our own applet but not have to distribute the full source code of our
> applet.
>
> Is there any room for making Cortado use LGPL instead (now that Xiph
> are in control of it) or are there possibilities for class path
> exceptions or special licenses?
>
> -JCT
Cortado was originally written by Fluendo, and they apparently chose the
GPL as the license to release their code.  Xiph has taken over
maintenance of the project, but that doesn't mean they necessarily own
all the code inside the project, so it cannot just be converted over in
one piece to the LGPL.

That may not be necessary - when you say embed, what do you mean,
exactly?  I don't know the legal ramifications, but depending on your
usage, you may still be able to do what you want to do without violating
the GPL.