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38 lines
1.8 KiB
Markdown
38 lines
1.8 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: GStreamer licensing
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...
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# GStreamer licensing
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## How to license the code you write for GStreamer
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GStreamer is a plugin-based framework licensed under the LGPL. The
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reason for this choice in licensing is to ensure that everyone can use
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GStreamer to build applications using licenses of their choice.
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To keep this policy viable, the GStreamer community has made a few
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licensing rules for code to be included in GStreamer's core or
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GStreamer's official modules, like our plugin packages. We require that
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all code going into our core package is LGPL. For the plugin code, we
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require the use of the LGPL for all plugins written from scratch or
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linking to external libraries. The only exception to this is when
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plugins contain older code under more liberal licenses (like the MPL or
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BSD). They can use those licenses instead and will still be considered
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for inclusion. We do not accept GPL code to be added to our plugins
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module, but we do accept LGPL-licensed plugins using an external GPL
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library. The reason for demanding plugins be licensed under the LGPL,
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even when using a GPL library, is that other developers might want to
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use the plugin code as a template for plugins linking to non-GPL
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libraries.
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We also plan on splitting out the plugins using GPL libraries into a
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separate package eventually and implement a system which makes sure an
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application will not be able to access these plugins unless it uses some
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special code to do so. The point of this is not to block GPL-licensed
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plugins from being used and developed, but to make sure people are not
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unintentionally violating the GPL license of said plugins.
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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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