[vorbis] Vorbis licensing...

[Kenneth Arnold]

On Fri, Oct 27, 2000 at 02:15:07PM -0700, Monty wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Oct 27, 2000 at 08:29:40AM -0500, Goblin wrote:
> > You know, folks, the license holder can grant special permission,
> > or any exceptions to the GPL, LGPL that party wants to.
> > 
> > There's no reason to get upset.
> 
> Of course, but I'd still like the licensing clear and generally
> applicable to everyone.  It's less hassle on us, and scares away fewer
> potential uses.  If the LGPL is holding us back for no good reason,
> we'll find a solution, preferrably one that isn't just a bunch of
> one-off exemptions.

Why not put together a list of things Monty / Xiphophorus / all contributers
are willing to tolerate and not for Vorbis (1) library and (2) example use
code. I'll start with the following suggestions:

* All software distributed open-source as determined by the criteria on
  opensource.org should be allowed to use the Ogg and Vorbis libraries
  and example code freely in their applications.
* Any program, liber, gratis, or commercial, may freely link to a library
  containing the Vorbis codec. (Perhaps there should be an "official"
  library that commercial products must use so that they may not even
  recompile Vorbis? Remember, a compiler could be programmed to modify
  the code, thus creating a proprietary implementation.) Programs that
  are not open-source cannot use any example code except for that in
  the specific examples distribution, which should be regarded as merely
  examples of API usage.
* Any program can include Vorbis in the executable, provided that a
  means is available for recreating the executable without the library
  or with a different library (e.g., providing object files).

Look like a start? Feel free to disagree; I didn't write any of the library
code <g> (but wish I did)

I feel tainted now, proposing such non-open-source ideas! Ideally a license
should exist for this sort of use, and it should be the LGPL, but from these
discussions it seems like the intentions of LGPL use are a bit unclear.
Vorbis's goals are, after all, only partially to be more open than MP3 -- it
is also [intended to be] a better codec. Monty?

-- 
Kenneth Arnold <ken at arnoldnet.net> / kcarnold / Linux user #180115
http://arnoldnet.net/~kcarnold/

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