mirror of
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gstreamer.git
synced 2024-11-30 05:31:15 +00:00
38 lines
2 KiB
XML
38 lines
2 KiB
XML
<chapter id="chapter-licensing-advisory">
|
|
<title>GStreamer licensing</title>
|
|
<sect1 id="section-application-licensing">
|
|
<title>How to license the code you write for <application>GStreamer</application></title>
|
|
<para>
|
|
GStreamer is a plugin-based framework licensed under the LGPL. The reason
|
|
for this choice in licensing is to ensure that everyone can use GStreamer
|
|
to build applications using licenses of their choice.
|
|
</para>
|
|
<para>
|
|
To keep this policy viable, the GStreamer community has made a few
|
|
licensing rules for code to be included in GStreamer's core or GStreamer's
|
|
official modules, like our plugin packages. We require that all code going
|
|
into our core package is LGPL. For the plugin code, we require the use of
|
|
the LGPL for all plugins written from scratch or linking to external
|
|
libraries. The only exception to this is when plugins contain older code
|
|
under more liberal licenses (like the MPL or BSD). They can use those
|
|
licenses instead and will still be considered for inclusion. We do not
|
|
accept GPL code to be added to our plugins module, but we do accept
|
|
LGPL-licensed plugins using an external GPL library. The reason for
|
|
demanding plugins be licensed under the LGPL, even when using a GPL
|
|
library, is that other developers might want to use the plugin code as a
|
|
template for plugins linking to non-GPL libraries.
|
|
</para>
|
|
<para>
|
|
We also plan on splitting out the plugins using GPL libraries into a
|
|
separate package eventually and implement a system which makes sure an
|
|
application will not be able to access these plugins unless it uses some
|
|
special code to do so. The point of this is not to block GPL-licensed
|
|
plugins from being used and developed, but to make sure people are not
|
|
unintentionally violating the GPL license of said plugins.
|
|
</para>
|
|
<para>
|
|
This advisory is part of a bigger advisory with a FAQ which you can find
|
|
on the <ulink url="http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/documentation/licensing.html">GStreamer website</ulink>
|
|
</para>
|
|
</sect1>
|
|
</chapter>
|