Alsa-Plugin 1.0.25 License

Alsa-Plugin 1.0.25 License

[karina filer]

Hi Team,

Greetings !!

I am facing difficulty to understand the Alsa-Plugin Licensing, Could you
please help me to make understand?, Is it under GPL 2.0 or LGPL 2.1 because
after extracting the folder I can see 2 copying file one for GPL and other
for LGPL.

https://repology.org/project/alsa-plugins/packages


Regards
K. Filer

Re: Alsa-Plugin 1.0.25 License

[Tanu Kaskinen]

On Mon, 2019-08-05 at 22:44 +0530, karina filer wrote:
> Hi Team,
> 
> Greetings !!
> 
> I am facing difficulty to understand the Alsa-Plugin Licensing, Could you
> please help me to make understand?, Is it under GPL 2.0 or LGPL 2.1 because
> after extracting the folder I can see 2 copying file one for GPL and other
> for LGPL.
> 
> https://repology.org/project/alsa-plugins/packages

alsa-plugins seems to lack a README or other overview document about
the licensing... alsa-plugins is primarily licensed under LGPL 2.1, and
to my knowledge the only exception is the libsamplerate based rate
plugin. The licensing is explained here:

https://git.alsa-project.org/?p=alsa-plugins.git;a=blob;f=rate/rate_samplerate.c

So this particluar rate plugin is licensed under GPL 2.0 "to follow the
license of libsamplerate", unless you have a commercial license to
libsamplerate. I don't think the rationale for that exception makes
much sense (LGPL would have worked just fine, as far as I can tell),
but at this point relicensing may be very difficult due to many
contributors.

libsamplerate was relicensed under the 2-clause BSD license in 2016[1],
which may or may not allow you to apply LGPL to the rate plugin (my
guess would be that it doesn't allow you to do that, but IANAL).

[1] http://www.mega-nerd.com/SRC/license.html

-- 
Tanu

https://www.patreon.com/tanuk
https://liberapay.com/tanuk

Re: Alsa-Plugin 1.0.25 License

[Tanu Kaskinen]

On Tue, 2019-08-06 at 16:20 +0300, Tanu Kaskinen wrote:
> On Mon, 2019-08-05 at 22:44 +0530, karina filer wrote:
> > Hi Team,
> > 
> > Greetings !!
> > 
> > I am facing difficulty to understand the Alsa-Plugin Licensing, Could you
> > please help me to make understand?, Is it under GPL 2.0 or LGPL 2.1 because
> > after extracting the folder I can see 2 copying file one for GPL and other
> > for LGPL.
> > 
> > https://repology.org/project/alsa-plugins/packages
> 
> alsa-plugins seems to lack a README or other overview document about
> the licensing... alsa-plugins is primarily licensed under LGPL 2.1, and
> to my knowledge the only exception is the libsamplerate based rate
> plugin.

I now had a look at the link you provided, and there I saw that BSD-3-
Clause and MIT were also mentioned. I had a closer look at the code,
and I found two more exceptions: the libspeexdsp based rate plugin
(under the pph directory) seems to be licensed under BSD-3-Clause, and
rate-lav/gcd.h is licensed under MIT (rate-lav/rate_lavrate.c is LGPL,
however).

> The licensing is explained here:
> 
> https://git.alsa-project.org/?p=alsa-plugins.git;a=blob;f=rate/rate_samplerate.c
> 
> So this particluar rate plugin is licensed under GPL 2.0 "to follow the
> license of libsamplerate", unless you have a commercial license to
> libsamplerate. I don't think the rationale for that exception makes
> much sense (LGPL would have worked just fine, as far as I can tell),
> but at this point relicensing may be very difficult due to many
> contributors.
> 
> libsamplerate was relicensed under the 2-clause BSD license in 2016[1],
> which may or may not allow you to apply LGPL to the rate plugin (my
> guess would be that it doesn't allow you to do that, but IANAL).
> 
> [1] http://www.mega-nerd.com/SRC/license.html

-- 
Tanu

https://www.patreon.com/tanuk
https://liberapay.com/tanuk

Re: Alsa-Plugin 1.0.25 License

[Tanu Kaskinen]

One more comment...

On Tue, 2019-08-06 at 16:20 +0300, Tanu Kaskinen wrote:
> On Mon, 2019-08-05 at 22:44 +0530, karina filer wrote:
> > Hi Team,
> > 
> > Greetings !!
> > 
> > I am facing difficulty to understand the Alsa-Plugin Licensing, Could you
> > please help me to make understand?, Is it under GPL 2.0 or LGPL 2.1 because
> > after extracting the folder I can see 2 copying file one for GPL and other
> > for LGPL.
> > 
> > https://repology.org/project/alsa-plugins/packages
> 
> alsa-plugins seems to lack a README or other overview document about
> the licensing... alsa-plugins is primarily licensed under LGPL 2.1, and
> to my knowledge the only exception is the libsamplerate based rate
> plugin. The licensing is explained here:
> 
> https://git.alsa-project.org/?p=alsa-plugins.git;a=blob;f=rate/rate_samplerate.c
> 
> So this particluar rate plugin is licensed under GPL 2.0 "to follow the
> license of libsamplerate", unless you have a commercial license to
> libsamplerate. I don't think the rationale for that exception makes
> much sense (LGPL would have worked just fine, as far as I can tell),
> but at this point relicensing may be very difficult due to many
> contributors.

Relicensing shouldn't be that hard after all, if that's desired (I
think it would be a good idea). Now that I looked, there actually
aren't many contributors to that plugin, only Takashi and Jaroslav.
Diego E. 'Flameeyes' Pettenò also has a commit, but it only changes one
line in the build system.

> libsamplerate was relicensed under the 2-clause BSD license in 2016[1],
> which may or may not allow you to apply LGPL to the rate plugin (my
> guess would be that it doesn't allow you to do that, but IANAL).
> 
> [1] http://www.mega-nerd.com/SRC/license.html

-- 
Tanu

https://www.patreon.com/tanuk
https://liberapay.com/tanuk

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Re: Alsa-Plugin 1.0.25 License

[Takashi Iwai]

On Tue, 06 Aug 2019 17:36:06 +0200,
Tanu Kaskinen wrote:
> 
> One more comment...
> 
> On Tue, 2019-08-06 at 16:20 +0300, Tanu Kaskinen wrote:
> > On Mon, 2019-08-05 at 22:44 +0530, karina filer wrote:
> > > Hi Team,
> > > 
> > > Greetings !!
> > > 
> > > I am facing difficulty to understand the Alsa-Plugin Licensing, Could you
> > > please help me to make understand?, Is it under GPL 2.0 or LGPL 2.1 because
> > > after extracting the folder I can see 2 copying file one for GPL and other
> > > for LGPL.
> > > 
> > > https://repology.org/project/alsa-plugins/packages
> > 
> > alsa-plugins seems to lack a README or other overview document about
> > the licensing... alsa-plugins is primarily licensed under LGPL 2.1, and
> > to my knowledge the only exception is the libsamplerate based rate
> > plugin. The licensing is explained here:
> > 
> > https://git.alsa-project.org/?p=alsa-plugins.git;a=blob;f=rate/rate_samplerate.c
> > 
> > So this particluar rate plugin is licensed under GPL 2.0 "to follow the
> > license of libsamplerate", unless you have a commercial license to
> > libsamplerate. I don't think the rationale for that exception makes
> > much sense (LGPL would have worked just fine, as far as I can tell),
> > but at this point relicensing may be very difficult due to many
> > contributors.
> 
> Relicensing shouldn't be that hard after all, if that's desired (I
> think it would be a good idea). Now that I looked, there actually
> aren't many contributors to that plugin, only Takashi and Jaroslav.
> Diego E. 'Flameeyes' Pettenò also has a commit, but it only changes one
> line in the build system.

I don't mind relicensing at all.  But the only concern is that no one
but for lawyers can confirm its validity...


thanks,

Takashi
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Re: Alsa-Plugin 1.0.25 License

[karina filer]

Thanks for your response.

- K.Filer

On Tue, Aug 6, 2019 at 9:15 PM Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de> wrote:

> On Tue, 06 Aug 2019 17:36:06 +0200,
> Tanu Kaskinen wrote:
> >
> > One more comment...
> >
> > On Tue, 2019-08-06 at 16:20 +0300, Tanu Kaskinen wrote:
> > > On Mon, 2019-08-05 at 22:44 +0530, karina filer wrote:
> > > > Hi Team,
> > > >
> > > > Greetings !!
> > > >
> > > > I am facing difficulty to understand the Alsa-Plugin Licensing,
> Could you
> > > > please help me to make understand?, Is it under GPL 2.0 or LGPL 2.1
> because
> > > > after extracting the folder I can see 2 copying file one for GPL and
> other
> > > > for LGPL.
> > > >
> > > > https://repology.org/project/alsa-plugins/packages
> > >
> > > alsa-plugins seems to lack a README or other overview document about
> > > the licensing... alsa-plugins is primarily licensed under LGPL 2.1, and
> > > to my knowledge the only exception is the libsamplerate based rate
> > > plugin. The licensing is explained here:
> > >
> > >
> https://git.alsa-project.org/?p=alsa-plugins.git;a=blob;f=rate/rate_samplerate.c
> > >
> > > So this particluar rate plugin is licensed under GPL 2.0 "to follow the
> > > license of libsamplerate", unless you have a commercial license to
> > > libsamplerate. I don't think the rationale for that exception makes
> > > much sense (LGPL would have worked just fine, as far as I can tell),
> > > but at this point relicensing may be very difficult due to many
> > > contributors.
> >
> > Relicensing shouldn't be that hard after all, if that's desired (I
> > think it would be a good idea). Now that I looked, there actually
> > aren't many contributors to that plugin, only Takashi and Jaroslav.
> > Diego E. 'Flameeyes' Pettenò also has a commit, but it only changes one
> > line in the build system.
>
> I don't mind relicensing at all.  But the only concern is that no one
> but for lawyers can confirm its validity...
>
>
> thanks,
>
> Takashi
>
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Re: Alsa-Plugin 1.0.25 License

[sylvain.bertrand]

On Mon, Aug 05, 2019 at 10:44:25PM +0530, karina filer wrote:
> I am facing difficulty to understand the Alsa-Plugin Licensing, Could you
> please help me to make understand?, Is it under GPL 2.0 or LGPL 2.1 because
> after extracting the folder I can see 2 copying file one for GPL and other
> for LGPL.

You don't need to care, except if you do use open source code in distributed
closed source programs (aka windows and macos).

-- 
Sylvain