Bug#694257: fdk-aac: who knows more?

[Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez]

On 09/05/13 23:27, Adam M. Costello wrote:
> Fabian Greffrath <fabian at greffrath.com>:
> 
>> Is fdk-aac finally the first *free* high-quality AAC encoder or is it
>> just the next *non-free* one after FAAC?
> 
> From what I've read, FAAC is not a high-quality AAC encoder.  As far as
> I know, fdk-aac is the only high-quality open-source AAC encoder.
> 
> I don't know if fdk-aac is DFSG-free, or GPL-compatible, but even if
> it's neither, Debian could still package it, right?  There's also a
> command-line tool, fdkaac, that uses it.
> 

Yes. If you are interested in packaging it, please go ahead.


> Of course, the library would be much more useful if avconv could use it.
> If libfdk-aac is GPL-incompatible, what does that imply?  That avconv
> must not require libfdk-aac to be present at runtime?  Could it check
> for the existence of libfdk-aac and dlopen() it if it's found?  Would
> that make them independent enough that their licenses wouldn't need to
> be compatible?

The thing is that libav (ffmpeg) is LGPL (not GPL). So, my understanding
is that it shouldn't be a problem to use a third-party library (fdk-aac
or whatever) even if this library is GPL-incompatible (or even proprietary).

I tried to clarify this point with libav developers [1]. But the replies
I got where not clear to me so I gave up. They seem to be more
interested in improving the internal AAC encoder of libav.

I still think that it shouldn't be any problem by linking libav with
fdk-aac or any other library given the LGPL license of libav. But I am
not a lawyer, maybe I'm wrong.

> 
> It's a shame that various open-source licenses fight each other and thus
> impede rather than promote the development of free software.
> 

Yes. I agree. This whole incompatibility between open source licenses is
a complete mess and a PITA for everybody.

I was pushing to ensure that the copyleft-next license that Richard
Fontana is creating address this specific point [2]


Regards!
--------



[1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.ffmpeg.libav.user/9395
[2] https://github.com/richardfontana/copyleft-next/issues/15

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