[vorbis-dev] Vorbis license terms?

Jack Moffitt jack at icecast.org
Tue Feb 15 20:23:13 PST 2000



>    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.  

libvorbis is lgpl.  this means that to use the libvorbis that monty and
others have written has certain rules.

the specificatino of the codec is not under any license, as it's a
specification.  i believe monty WANTS commercial non-free implementations
to arise that don't use libvorbis. 

just like there are 10 mp3 encoders, there might one day be 10 vorbis
encoders, all from different codebases.  

i'll note here that icecast is gpl, and that it has overall been a good
thing to be slightly restrictive about redistribution.  however, it hasn't
stopped anyone from making custom versions (adero, akamai, etc) and using
them in house without problems.

jack.

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