Re: [Mingw-cross-env-list] Binaries using ffmpeg unredistributable

[Martin Lambers]

On 07/12/10 10:16, Volker Grabsch wrote:
> Martin Lambers <address@hidden> schrieb:
>> It may be a good idea to remove at least --enable-nonfree, and I
>> personally think that --enable-gpl and --enable-version3 should also be
>> removed. Packages that want these features may add them locally, and all
>> others are on the safe side.
> 
> I fully agree, because ffmpeg is not a pure GPL-library. So I disabled
> those three options:

Thanks!

>> (Even then, there is the question of whether distributing binary
>> packages that contain ffmpeg is completely risk-free, because of the
>> patent situation described here: <http://ffmpeg.org/legal.html>.
> 
> I personally think this goes too far, because we can neither be
> sure whether those patents really hold, nor we can be sure that
> the remaining parts are free from patents. This is simply because
> almost noone has the resources to do a full, reliable patent
> research on that issue.
> 
> That's why I, personally, won't put any of my free time into that.

I fully agree.

>> To be
>> completely safe, one might want to disable certain features that are
>> commonly also disabled in the packages distributed by major GNU/Linux
>> distributions. But that is a different issue...)
> 
> Feel free to propose a patch for ffmpeg.mk if you are convinced
> that this is a good idea. I'd include it if nobody else complains.

No, I certainly don't want to spend any time on this mess, either. The
comment was merely meant as a hint to package distributors that there
may or may not be pitfalls in this area. If someone wants to deal with
this, it should probably be done on a per-package basis and not in
mingw-cross-env.

Martin