[Bf-committers] Fwd: Copyright violation distributing faac binaries together with GPL software

[Leo Sutic]

Ton,

libavcodec *is* FFmpeg. (Or part of it, anyway.)

The problem that is claimed is that libfaac is included in Blender's
version of libavcodec that is distributed with Blender 2.49.

The solution is to compile FFmpeg / libavcodec without libfaac.
(Throwing out x264 is not an option, as libfaac has more problems than
just being GPL-incompatible) It should be a build config change and
that's it - but someone has to build a new distribution. Then we should
be OK. SVN is down fot the moment, so I haven't been able to look at the
2.49 source to figure out where the change needs to be made.

We lose the ability to encode sound using AAC, but nothing more.

Could you run this past Carl Hoyos and see if I got this thing right?

See here for some others who have run into the same issue:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/faac/+bug/374900

http://lists.rpmfusion.org/pipermail/rpmfusion-developers/2009-October/006221.html

Also look here for a libfaac license change (?):
http://faac.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/faac/faac/libfaac/tns.c?r1=1.8&r2=1.9

Here's the libfaac license, for reference:

BEGIN LIBFAAC LICENCE ------------------------------------------------
__________
COPYRIGHTS

FAAC is based on the ISO MPEG-4 reference code. For this base code the
following license applies:


**********************************************************************
This software module was originally developed by

FirstName LastName (CompanyName)

and edited by

FirstName LastName (CompanyName)
FirstName LastName (CompanyName)

in the course of development of the MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio standard
ISO/IEC 13818-7, 14496-1,2 and 3. This software module is an
implementation of a part of one or more MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio tools
as specified by the MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio standard. ISO/IEC gives
users of the MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio standards free license to this
software module or modifications thereof for use in hardware or
software products claiming conformance to the MPEG-2 NBC/ MPEG-4 Audio
standards. Those intending to use this software module in hardware or
software products are advised that this use may infringe existing
patents. The original developer of this software module and his/her
company, the subsequent editors and their companies, and ISO/IEC have
no liability for use of this software module or modifications thereof
in an implementation. Copyright is not released for non MPEG-2
NBC/MPEG-4 Audio conforming products. The original developer retains
full right to use the code for his/her own purpose, assign or donate
the code to a third party and to inhibit third party from using the
code for non MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio conforming products. This
copyright notice must be included in all copies or derivative works.

Copyright (c) 1997.
**********************************************************************


For the changes made for the FAAC project the GNU Library General
Public License (LGPL), version 2 1991 applies. For the changes the
following statement applies:

**********************************************************************
FAAC - Freeware Advanced Audio Coder
Copyright (C) 2001 M. Bakker

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
Lesser General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
**********************************************************************



Please note that the use of this software may require the payment of
patent royalties. You need to consider this issue before you start
building derivative works. We are not warranting or indemnifying you in
any way for patent royalities! YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN
ACTIONS!

END LIBFAAC LICENCE --------------------------------------------------


/LS

On 2011-01-06 17:41, Ton Roosendaal wrote:
> Hi devs,
> 
> Please advise. I recall libavcodec is quite old already, and probably  
> obsolete mostly because of FFmpg?
> 
> -Ton-
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation   ton at blender.org    www.blender.org
> Blender Institute   Entrepotdok 57A  1018AD Amsterdam   The Netherlands
> 
> Begin forwarded message:
> 
>> From: Carl Eugen Hoyos
>> Date: 6 January, 2011 17:15:37 GMT+01:00
>> To: foundation at blender.org
>> Subject: Copyright violation distributing faac binaries together  
>> with GPL software
>>
>> Hi!
>>
>> I am an FFmpeg developer and I just found out that Blender binaries  
>> are distributed containing GPL'd versions of libavcodec linked  
>> against non-free software (this is a copyright violation).
>>
>> I don't know where to report this (should I open a bug report?), so  
>> I write to the only email adress I easily found on the web-site.
>>
>> I downloaded blender-2.49b-windows, it contains libavcodec.dll, a  
>> binary distribution of libavcodec. The dll contains code from x264,  
>> making it GPL (and not LGPL). It also contains code from the libfaac  
>> project.
>> Originally, libfaac claimed to be free software (under the LGPL),  
>> but unfortunately, this was never true: libfaac is (and always has  
>> been) proprietary software.
>> Since you cannot fulfill the requirements of the GPL for libfaac,  
>> you cannot distribute a GPL'd version of libavcodec with libfaac  
>> support enabled. Please remove it from your download page / update  
>> your libavcodec version.
>>
>> Thank you, Carl Eugen Hoyos
> 
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