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101 lines
5.4 KiB
XML
101 lines
5.4 KiB
XML
<chapter id="chapter-licensing">
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<title>Licensing advisory</title>
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<sect1 id="section-application-licensing">
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<title>How to license the applications you build with <application>GStreamer</application></title>
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<para>
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The licensing of GStreamer is no different from a lot of other libraries
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out there like GTK+ or glibc: we use the LGPL. What complicates things
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with regards to GStreamer is its plugin-based design and the heavily
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patented and proprietary nature of many multimedia codecs. While patents
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on software are currently only allowed in a small minority of world
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countries (the US and Australia being the most important of those), the
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problem is that due to the central place the US hold in the world economy
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and the computing industry, software patents are hard to ignore wherever
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you are.
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Due to this situation, many companies, including major GNU/Linux
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distributions, get trapped in a situation where they either get bad
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reviews due to lacking out-of-the-box media playback capabilities (and
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attempts to educate the reviewers have met with little success so far), or
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go against their own - and the free software movement's - wish to avoid
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proprietary software. Due to competitive pressure, most choose to add some
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support. Doing that through pure free software solutions would have them
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risk heavy litigation and punishment from patent owners. So when the
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decision is made to include support for patented codecs, it leaves them
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the choice of either using special proprietary applications, or try to
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integrate the support for these codecs through proprietary plugins into
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the multimedia infrastructure provided by GStreamer. Faced with one of
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these two evils the GStreamer community of course prefer the second option.
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</para>
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<para>
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The problem which arises is that most free software and open source
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applications developed use the GPL as their license. While this is
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generally a good thing, it creates a dilemma for people who want to put
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together a distribution. The dilemma they face is that if they include
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proprietary plugins in GStreamer to support patented formats in a way that
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is legal for them, they do risk running afoul of the GPL license of the
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applications. We have gotten some conflicting reports from lawyers on
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whether this is actually a problem, but the official stance of the FSF is
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that it is a problem. We view the FSF as an authority on this matter, so
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we are inclined to follow their interpretation of the GPL license.
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</para>
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<para>
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So what does this mean for you as an application developer? Well, it means
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you have to make an active decision on whether you want your application
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to be used together with proprietary plugins or not. What you decide here
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will also influence the chances of commercial distributions and Unix
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vendors shipping your application. The GStreamer community suggest you
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license your software using a license that will allow proprietary plugins
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to be bundled with GStreamer and your applications, in order to make sure
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that as many vendors as possible go with GStreamer instead of less free
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solutions. This in turn we hope and think will let GStreamer be a vehicle
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for wider use of free formats like the Xiph.org formats.
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</para>
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<para>
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If you do decide that you want to allow for non-free plugins to be used
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with your application you have a variety of choices. One of the simplest
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is using licenses like LGPL, MPL or BSD for your application instead of
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the GPL. Or you can add a exceptions clause to your GPL license stating
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that you except GStreamer plugins from the obligations of the GPL.
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</para>
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<para>
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A good example of such a GPL exception clause would be, using the
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Totem video player project as an example:
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The authors of the Totem video player project hereby grants permission
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for non-GPL-compatible GStreamer plugins to be used and distributed
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together with GStreamer and Totem. This permission goes above and beyond
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the permissions granted by the GPL license Totem is covered by.
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</para>
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<para>
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Our suggestion among these choices is to use the LGPL license, as it is
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what resembles the GPL most and it makes it a good licensing fit with the
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major GNU/Linux desktop projects like GNOME and KDE. It also allows you to
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share code more openly with projects that have compatible licenses.
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Obviously, pure GPL code without the above-mentioned clause is not usable
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in your application as such. By choosing the LGPL, there is no need for an
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exception clause and thus code can be shared more freely.
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</para>
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<para>
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I have above outlined the practical reasons for why the GStreamer
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community suggest you allow non-free plugins to be used with your
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applications. We feel that in the multimedia arena, the free software
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community is still not strong enough to set the agenda and that blocking
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non-free plugins to be used in our infrastructure hurts us more than it
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hurts the patent owners and their ilk.
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</para>
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<para>
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This view is not shared by everyone. The Free Software Foundation urges
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you to use an unmodified GPL for your applications, so as to push back
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against the temptation to use non-free plug-ins. They say that since not
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everyone else has the strength to reject them because they are unethical,
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they ask your help to give them a legal reason to do so.
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</para>
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<para>
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This advisory is part of a bigger advisory with a FAQ which you can find
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on the <ulink url="http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/documentation/licensing.html">GStreamer website</ulink>
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</para>
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</sect1>
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</chapter>
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