Bug#839941: whishlist ffmpeg

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Hi Marc,

Quoting Struminski, Marc (2016-10-18 14:47:52)
> I thought, that you can use it free in ffmpeg, becuse the header files 
> of SDK says: The software is Provided "AS IS³Š.

I believe that expression most likely is intended not to grant you any 
freedoms, but instead to mean "don't try sue us for implicitly promising 
you that it would work for a certain use-case, and you lost millions in 
investment in a now sunken business adventure" - i.e. what we in geek 
community call "if it breaks, you get to keep both pieces".

Copyright laws in most jurisdictions obey the Berne convention, which 
requires freedoms to be explicitly stated (and that the classic phrase 
"all rights reserved" is obsolete).  Stating that it is provided "as is" 
does not rxpand to the range of freedoms defined as the Debian Free 
Software Guidelines (later adopted as the definition for the Open Source 
movement).

NB! I am not a lawyer.  My guess above is based on analyzing semantics 
of a multitude of MIT-like licenses, and then comparing what seems like 
evolutionary trends in choice of words for various parts.

Further questions about whether some code is DFSG-free or not is best 
addressed to debian-legal at lists.debian.org.


 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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