[vorbis] Vorbis licensing...

[Sean Wieland]

"Pedriana, Paul" wrote:
> 
> We spent a little time here taking a look at
> the Vorbis licensing scheme and ran into some
> possible issues. In particular, the Vorbis
> FAQ page here says that the LGPL license applies
> to Vorbis libraries and GPL applies to source
> code (at least that's what I gather).
> 
>         http://www.vorbis.com/faq.html#flic
>         http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/lesser.html
> 
> Reading the text of these Gnu licenses implies
> that we cannot compile the source code into our
> executable. It implies that we can distribute
> a DLL with Vorbis in it and that if we have a
> modified version of that DLL, we need to provide
> source code for it.
> 
> Is this correct? More in particular, exactly how
> can or can't we use Vorbis in a commercial application.
> This specific question is not directly answered in
> any way in the FAQ, yet it is exactly the question
> we want to know the answer to.
> 
> Paul

Basically, you compile libVorbis as a DLL, and to which you must include
the source code.  However, the LGPL handles the unwanted case of "viral
GPL'ing", meaning that you can call the Vorbis DLL from a commercial
product and not have to release the source code to the entire product
(just the DLL).  A good example of this is AudioGrabber, which is a
commercial product, but can use the Vorbis DLL to encode on the fly and
transparently convert directly from CDDA tracks to Vorbis files. 
However, the Vorbis application code such as OggEnc is under the GPL and
cannot be used in a commercial product without GPLing that aswell.

-Sean


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