LAME LGPL Modifications

[Andres Mejia]

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.

> 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