"Licensed" codecs

[Thomas Dodd]

Alan Cox wrote:
>>I'll give you this one, only if you can tell me what would prevent 
>>something like mPlayer being released GPL, and the codec plugin from being 
>>released as a seperate binary only package?  The copy of xmms I have right 
>>now comes as two seperate RPMs.  The xmms RPM package that contains the 
>>player and the xmms-mp3 mplugin RPM which I had to go and d/l elsewhere.
> 
> 
> For GPL software the GPL prevents it. For BSD type licenses you can probably
> do that just fine providing you have the relevant licenses

I beleive that to be a bug in the GPL. (or a reason to use a different 
license if that is the true intent)

Plugins and addons should not be considered derivitives automatically. 
If I write a "pluging" for the GIMP, that mimics the functionality of a 
comercial Photoshop plugin, why woul it be a derivitive of the GIMP? Now 
If I modified an existin, GPLed, GIMP plugin, that would have to be GPL. 
If I write a new plugin from scratch, using the defined plugin 
interface, that should not have to be GPL.

Same with xmms plugins, and kernel modules. Use a defined interface to 
implement functionality, and it should not force the GPL on the new 
functionality.

	-Thomas