[haiku-development] Re: INPUT / VOTE : --include-gpl-addons
- From: Ingo Weinhold <ingo_weinhold@xxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:06:32 +0200
On 2009-08-18 at 20:28:38 [+0200], Matt Madia <mattmadia@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 17:31, Urias McCullough<umccullough@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 6:47 AM, Axel Dörfler<axeld@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > wrote:
> >> Matt Madia <mattmadia@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>> For a non-dev release, i'd like to see VLC
> >>
> >> We have already MediaPlayer - why include VLC? I know it supports more
> >> and often better-working codecs, but that's something we should
> >> actually change.
> >>
> >>> And just to make sure, releases by Haiku will not utilize --include-
> >>> gpl-addons ?
> >>
> >> I actually don't know why we wouldn't want to include those. Maybe that
> >> particular topic should go to another thread?
> >
> > Did this other thread already happen and I missed it? :(
> >
> Not that I'm aware of. So here it is :)
>
> > If we disable the GPL bits in ffmpeg, I'm going to strongly desire VLC ...
> >
>
> So, this thread is to discuss whether or not we should or should not
> build R1Alpha1 with "configure --include-gpl-addons <other_options>"
>
> AFAIK
> * --include-gpl-addons would provide AC3 decoders, ntfs, and reiserfs.
> * Enabling those would require that image to be released under GPL
> and not under MIT.
Formulated like this it is not correct. The image itself isn't covered by a
single license. It contains quite a lot of components covered by quite a few
different licenses.
By including a GPL add-on at worst only the components it links against are
affected. Since the GPL has a special exception for "major components
(compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system", I believe at least
including the file systems in question wouldn't be a problem. Codecs might be
a different story as they are loaded (indirectly) by the applications that
use them.
> * One of Haiku's goals is to freely allow anyone or any company to do
> whatever they want with Haiku (including its source code), which is
> why MIT was chosen.
Well, since we can't really write all software ourselves, we have to live
with certain software packages and their licenses.
> when distributing GPL licensed binaries, it's preferred to mirror the
> complete source alongside the binary --- but this is a whole other
> issue.
It's still something we need to think about, since the Haiku image will come
with a whole lot of GPL software.
CU, Ingo
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