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93 lines
5.1 KiB
Markdown
93 lines
5.1 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Licensing advisory
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...
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# Licensing advisory
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## How to license the applications you build with GStreamer
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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
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economy and the computing industry, software patents are hard to ignore
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wherever you are. Due to this situation, many companies, including major
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GNU/Linux distributions, get trapped in a situation where they either
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get bad reviews due to lacking out-of-the-box media playback
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capabilities (and attempts to educate the reviewers have met with little
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success so far), or go against their own - and the free software
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movement's - wish to avoid proprietary software. Due to competitive
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pressure, most choose to add some support. Doing that through pure free
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software solutions would have them risk heavy litigation and punishment
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from patent owners. So when the decision is made to include support for
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patented codecs, it leaves them the choice of either using special
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proprietary applications, or try to integrate the support for these
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codecs through proprietary plugins into the multimedia infrastructure
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provided by GStreamer. Faced with one of these two evils the GStreamer
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community of course prefer the second option.
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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
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that is legal for them, they do risk running afoul of the GPL license of
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the applications. We have gotten some conflicting reports from lawyers
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on whether this is actually a problem, but the official stance of the
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FSF is that it is a problem. We view the FSF as an authority on this
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matter, so we are inclined to follow their interpretation of the GPL
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license.
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So what does this mean for you as an application developer? Well, it
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means you have to make an active decision on whether you want your
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application to be used together with proprietary plugins or not. What
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you decide here will also influence the chances of commercial
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distributions and Unix vendors shipping your application. The GStreamer
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community suggest you license your software using a license that will
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allow proprietary plugins to be bundled with GStreamer and your
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applications, in order to make sure that as many vendors as possible go
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with GStreamer instead of less free solutions. This in turn we hope and
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think will let GStreamer be a vehicle for wider use of free formats like
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the Xiph.org formats.
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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 an exception 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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A good example of such a GPL exception clause would be, using the Totem
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video player project as an example: The authors of the Totem video
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player project hereby grants permission for non-GPL-compatible GStreamer
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plugins to be used and distributed together with GStreamer and Totem.
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This permission goes above and beyond the permissions granted by the GPL
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license Totem is covered by.
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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
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the major GNU/Linux desktop projects like GNOME and KDE. It also allows
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you to share code more openly with projects that have compatible
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licenses. Obviously, pure GPL code without the above-mentioned clause is
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not usable in your application as such. By choosing the LGPL, there is
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no need for an exception clause and thus code can be shared more freely.
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I have above outlined the practical reasons for why the GStreamer
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community suggests 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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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
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unethical, they ask your help to give them a legal reason to do so.
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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 [GStreamer
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website](http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/documentation/licensing.html)
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