This was forwarded to me by a freeamp developer. He said that mpg123 contains GPL'd code, but its license prohibits non-free use.
Anyone know what the legal status of mpg123 is? Ben -- Brought to you by the letters T and W and the number 2. "You forgot Uranus." "Goooooooooodnight everybody!" -- Yakko and Wakko Debian GNU/Linux -- where do you want to go tomorrow? http://www.debian.org/ I'm on FurryMUCK as Che, and EFNet and YiffNet IRC as Che_Fox. ------- Start of forwarded message ------- Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1998 22:30:26 -0700 From: Jason Dale Woodward <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Ben Gertzfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: debian freeamp package References: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Ben- Thanks for the info on the Debian rules, and that there are, sorta, two distributions. I've been a RedHat guy for a while. Debian has been tempting me recently though... probably when I get a new machine I'll give it a go. I did look more closely, however, at the docs distributed with mpg123 and noticed that he states in his README: 'In the current layer3.c I'm using a DCT36 from Jeff Tsay's ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) maplay 1.2+ package. His code is under GPL ..' This (along with the non-commercial usage policy) is basically what turned my company off to using it, and prompted us to do our own. I don't believe he is legally allowed to do this (without Jeff Tsay's permission, which he doesn't state he has). Thanks for your input! jason On Fri, Oct 09, 1998 at 06:04:38PM -0700, Ben Gertzfield wrote: > >>>>> "Jason" == Jason Dale Woodward <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Jason> Ben and Paul- We just released v0.5 of FreeAmp. Its now > Jason> the fastest GPL MP3 player available. We now feature > Jason> mpg123 command line compatability. Tres Cool :) > > Neat! I'll package it up. :) > > Jason> Not to be a sour puss or anything (and, of course, to > Jason> advance FreeAmp), in light of the recent Debian and KDE > Jason> things, I think you should reevaluate maintaining an mpg123 > Jason> package. Their license does not allow (necessarily) > Jason> commercial use, which I believe violates the Debian Free > Jason> Software Guidelines. > > mpg123 is in the non-free Debian distribution, which is perfectly > fine. > > [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~]% dpkg --status mpg123 > 5:54PM > Package: mpg123 > Status: install ok installed > Priority: optional > Section: non-free/sound > Installed-Size: 162 > Maintainer: Paul Haggart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Version: 0.59o-2 > Depends: libc6 > Description: MPEG layer 1/2/3 audio player > Mpg123 is a fast, free and portable MPEG audio player for Unix. It supports > MPEG 1.0/2.0 layers 1, 2 and 3 (those famous "mp3" files). > . > For full CD quality playback (44 kHz, 16 bit, stereo) a Pentium, > SPARCstation10, DEC Alpha or similar CPU is required. Mono and/or reduced > quality playback (22 kHz or 11 kHz) is even possible on 486 CPUs. > > Non-DFSG software can be a part of Debian, it just cannot be a part > of the 'main' distribution of Debian. > > KDE is another kettle of fish; it cannot be distributed in binary form > *at all* with its current license. They also take other people's GPL > code and fold in a QT interface, which is a violation of the GPL. > > -- > Brought to you by the letters W and K and the number 6. > "Arrrrrh. This chair be high, says I." -- Blackbeard the Pirate > Debian GNU/Linux -- where do you want to go tomorrow? http://www.debian.org/ > I'm on FurryMUCK as Che, and EFNet and YiffNet IRC as Che_Fox. ------- End of forwarded message -------
