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

[Volker Grabsch]

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:

http://hg.savannah.gnu.org/hgweb/mingw-cross-env/rev/b9302674f9ba

> (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.

> 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.


Greets,
Volker

-- 
Volker Grabsch
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