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| WVGUI not honoring (L)GPL |
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Premium member in user
     posts: 350 since: 26 Nov, 2002
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21. Re:WVGUI not honoring (L)GPL |
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pw (Jul 09, 2003 13:50): But this topic has been read more than 300 times now, but has not had any effect other than a bit of flaming and me more or less having made a fool of myself. Yours are the only "proper" responses, the others just do not seem to care.
Hmm... so my response wasn't 'proper', right?  Let me put it this way: I really would love to live in a perfect world. Where everybody respects each other and all are equal. Unfortunately, this is not the case. But what do you want me to do? Boycot WVGUI? Sign my name across a petition against russian multimedia software? What? The only thing that makes sense to me is to offer my help in getting hands on docs for example. And that's not easy, as I don't speak russian and only know little about the technical backgrounds of this piece of software... OTOH, did someone took care to find out why this guy maintains a blacklist? What kind of time-wasting nonsense is this? There's two ways of dealing with a (L)GPL violation in my mind: 1) You don't care 2) You adress the "violating" authors directly and speak to them about the issue, giving them a chance to react. I don't see this to have happened. This is far from being the perfect way of dealing with such situations in my mind. I don't see the *reason* for a blacklist... besides provocating flames between people which are not directly involved into the matter which is a great way to FUD the community again. Yes, okay! These things need to be discussed, but hey... let's take it a little easier than it took off - give the guys a chance and wait until a GA release milestone or something. Perhaps they just need to issue a call for help in getting the paperwork organized. I'm sure that there would be enough participants. Maybe I should try to get in contact with them "for a VOICE newsletter interview" to see what is going on behind the scene... if I ask them in a polite way.  Thomas |
| Date: 09 Jul, 2003 on 19:45 |
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Normal member in user
     posts: 8 since: 03 Jul, 2003 |
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22. Re:WVGUI not honoring (L)GPL |
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Just for note. It can be many reasons, why sources of WVGUI was not published...  Please, be sure this is not a note from WVGUI developers, just my opinion (I am not related with WV developing).1. Maintaining downlodable sourcecode is additional job and need additional time. Some time ago this sources was available from CVS and nothing happened. Nobody want to contribute, nobody want to work with it... So why care about it's availability? If you experienced coder and really want to help - there are many ways to help developing. If you want to know, how it work - you can always get well-known opensource projects and see original code, which was not screwed by russian pirates. 2. It's not clear, are GPL can be a suitable license for any MPEG/MPEG2 player at all. At least clause 7 of GPL can't be satisfied in any case. Any MPEG/MPEG2 player is a subject to royalty to apropriate patent holders. So, if you was downloaded MPEG2 player and use it without payment - you are pirate and violate patent laws Who care about pirate's satisfaction? ) Regards, Valery |
| Date: 10 Jul, 2003 on 10:44 |
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Normal member in user
     posts: 19 since: 03 Jul, 2003 |
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23. Re:WVGUI not honoring (L)GPL |
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warpcafe (Jul 09, 2003 20:45): Hmm... so my response wasn't 'proper', right? 
Well, it was more "proper" than dink's posts. 
2) You adress the "violating" authors directly and speak to them about the issue, giving them a chance to react. Maybe I should try to get in contact with them "for a VOICE newsletter interview" to see what is going on behind the scene... if I ask them in a polite way. 
That's a good idea. Obviously they ignore my emails so someone else could try it. Perhaps the OS/2-eZine is a better place for an interview. But I am definitely in favor of a "behind the scenes" look!
LightElf (Jul 10, 2003 11:44): and see original code, which was not screwed by russian pirates.
Ukranian pirates in this case. 
2. It's not clear, are GPL can be a suitable license for any MPEG/MPEG2 player at all. At least clause 7 of GPL can't be satisfied in any case. Any MPEG/MPEG2 player is a subject to royalty to apropriate patent holders.
Hmm, interesting point. I thought that patents only apply to MP3 (Fraunhofer Institute in that case), and that they only enforce their patent on commercial applications (e.g. hardware MP3 players). Or am I confusing the formats again? Who holds patents for MPEG1/2? Do they enforce them on Open Source software? |
| Date: 10 Jul, 2003 on 11:37 |
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Normal member in user
     posts: 8 since: 03 Jul, 2003 |
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24. Re:WVGUI not honoring (L)GPL |
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2. It's not clear, are GPL can be a suitable license for any MPEG/MPEG2 player at all. At least clause 7 of GPL can't be satisfied in any case. Any MPEG/MPEG2 player is a subject to royalty to apropriate patent holders.
Hmm, interesting point. I thought that patents only apply to MP3 (Fraunhofer Institute in that case), and that they only enforce their patent on commercial applications (e.g. hardware MP3 players). Or am I confusing the formats again? Who holds patents for MPEG1/2? Do they enforce them on Open Source software?[/quote]You can see MPEG2 licensing policy at www.mpegla.com. MPEG2 covered by about of 220 patents. License costs $2.5 per one decoder. There are also one-time paying scheme with $$$$$. There are no exclusions for Open Source. MPEG2 patent laws never was enforced to free-of-charge software, but this not mean it's legal... About MP3 - this is another story and GPL MP3 player are also illegal (from GPL point's of view). MP3 licensing utilize terms commercial/freeware, not a closed/open sourced. GPL allow you to sell GPL-software (like Red Hat does) and requere any GPL-software to be royalty-free. This is a reason, why GPL MP3 player incompatible with section 7 of GPL and FSF FAQ. |
| Date: 10 Jul, 2003 on 12:58 |
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| WVGUI not honoring (L)GPL |
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