[Vorbis-dev] Questions about License and so on.

[Michael Smith]

On Friday 12 November 2004 11:20, Rodrigo Gómez wrote:
> Hello there.
>
> I'm seeing with a third party library vendor, wich creates components for
> signal and audio processing for Delphi and BCB, the way to integrate
> support for OggVorbis, but there are some license issues that I don't
> know/understand.
>
> In plain text: can he create and distribute a component that uses the code
> available in the Windows SDK, either in the DLL presentation and/or the
> OBJ/LIB way without any restrictions? Does his code will have to be GPLed?
> As far as I undesrstand, there is no restrictions whatsoever with the use
> of the vorbis software libraries, other than there is an acknowledgement to
> Xiph.org for using the codec source, isn't? He is not trying to use or
> distribute other parts of the SDK (i.e., not vorbistools, etc). The only
> function of this components will be to encode or decode audio, nothing
> more.
>
> Thanks for any help.

The code certainly doesn't have to be GPLed - the vorbis codec software is not 
itself under either the GPL or any related license. It's under a BSD-style 
lience (see the COPYING file for the full license agreement).

So, there ARE restrictions on using and distributing the software - the 
COPYING file gives these. But they're not terribly difficult to follow. 
Basically, you have to distribute the license agreement (the COPYING file - 
though it can, of course, be renamed) with the software, and you are not 
permitted to use the name of the Xiph.org Foundation to "endorse or promote 
products derived from this software without specific prior written 
permission".

There's no restriction whatsoever on the license of software that uses 
libvorbis. 

Mike