LAME LGPL Modifications

[Andres Mejia]

On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 1:44 PM, Andres Mejia <mcitadel at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 1:39 PM, Mark Taylor <mt at mp3dev.org> wrote:
>> Hi Andres,
>>
>> I'd be happy to just delete this text from the README.
>>
>> Not sure if my sourceforge account will still work.  It would be
>> quicker one of the other developers was willing to remove this text?
>> Hence I'm forwarding to lame-dev at lists.sf.net.
>>
>> Mark
>
> Ok. Thank you very much!
>
> Also, I'm going to assume I can remove this text from the README in
> the tarballs for any of the releases from LAME.

Before I rush to this, let me say that I hope nobody minds if I remove
this text from the tarball of LAME that will be redistributed
(hopefully) in Debian. Of course if anyone has objections, feel free
to raise them.

>> On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 7:50 AM,  <ceros7 at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I'm sorry to bother you. I'm sure you have already been
>>> contacted with regards to LAME and the modifications you
>>> made to its license over 10 years ago. There's a possibility
>>> that LAME can be redistributed alongside Debian (despite the
>>> patent issues with LAME) if a certain issue is resolved.
>>> This issue is with regards to the modifications you
>>> introduced in the README file. The modifications are
>>> repeated below.
>>>
>>> This code is distributed under the GNU LESSER PUBLIC LICENSE
>>> (LGPL, see www.gnu.org) with the following modification:
>>>
>>> 1. If you determine that distribution of LAME requires a
>>> patent license,
>>>   and you obtain a patent license, you may distribute LAME
>>> even though
>>>   redistribution of LAME may also require a patent license.
>>>
>>> 2. You agree not to enforce any patent claims for any aspect of
>>>   MPEG audio compression, or any other techniques contained in
>>>   the LAME source code.
>>>
>>> The issue is mainly with the second modification which
>>> contradicts the terms of the LGPL which states.
>>>
>>> "You may not impose any further restrictions on the
>>> recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."
>>>
>>> This contradiction makes LAME undistributable (see [1] and [2]).
>>>
>>> I have sent a message to the Free Software Foundation and
>>> the Software Freedom Law Center in regards to this issue
>>> (see [3]). So far I haven't received a response from either
>>> of them. I have received a response from one of the current
>>> LAME developers however (I had CC'd the lame-dev mailing
>>> list). Since the time these extra restrictions were
>>> introduced, no other file was updated to add these
>>> restrictions. Thus there is confusion as to whether LAME is
>>> still licensed solely under LGPL or if these modifications
>>> to the LGPL which are stated in the README file also apply.
>>> The current LAME developers would like to remove those extra
>>> restrictions if they knew for sure that those restrictions
>>> only applied to the README or at least any file that doesn't
>>> contain any licensing information.
>>>
>>> Since you were the only person to introduce these changes,
>>> this is why I am sending you this lengthy message via
>>> sourceforge.net's messaging system. If you agree to have
>>> these modifications to the LGPL dropped for LAME, could you
>>> send a message to the current LAME developers allowing them
>>> to drop the modifications? You could also send me a message
>>> and I will route the message to them (I am not a LAME
>>> developer).
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Andres Mejia
>>> Email: mcitadel at gmail.com
>>>
>>> 1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2010/08/msg00049.html
>>> 2.
>>> http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-multimedia-maintainers/2011-April/017869.html
>>> 3.
>>> https://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=201105030019.30226.mcitadel%40gmail.com&forum_name=lame-dev
>>>
>>> --
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>>>
>>>
>>
>
> Again, thank you very much. :-)
>
> --
> Regards,
> Andres Mejia
>



-- 
Regards,
Andres Mejia