[vorbis-dev] Vorbis license terms?

[Lynn Winebarger]

On Mon, 14 Feb 2000, David Terrell wrote:
> A BSD-like license (or an MIT-X11 like license, if you'd prefer :)
> doesn't restrict small corporate developers from building vorbis
> players.  When you consider that a lot of the adoption curve of
> vorbis will be getting winamp to support your codec, that's not a
> small consideration.  Reengineering is certainly possible, but that
> favors large companies (Microsoft, AOL) over smaller developers who
> would not have the manpower/resources to build their own alternative.
> 
   This all depends on your interest in the adoption curve.  Neither the
LGPL nor the GPL prevent anyone from using them.   Sometimes a developer
may have to make a choice between two different incompatibly licensed
pieces of software, but that's entirely up to the developer.
   Of course, I have no sympathy for those writing non-free software not
getting to use free parts.  If proprietary developers want to use someone
else's software, why shouldn't they have to play on their own terms?

> An LGPL distribution would probably be enough for this to be the
> case, so the point is somewhat moot.  Since the GPL doesn't prevent
> redevelopment, it's really on the honor system anyway.  Why not
> acknowledge that with a more free license?

   What do you mean by "the honor system"?  There's nothing dishonorable
about writing one's own implementation of a standard - indeed, I think
(preferably friendly) competition is a good thing.  Keeps people on their
toes.  

Lynn

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