[whatwg] Google's use of FFmpeg in Chromium and Chrome Was: Re: MPEG-1 subset proposal for HTML5 video codec

[Silvia Pfeiffer]

On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 3:28 PM, Daniel Berlin <dannyb at google.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 11:51 PM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 10:18 PM, Daniel Berlin <dannyb at google.com> wrote:
>>> On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 9:50 PM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 9:29 PM, Daniel Berlin <dannyb at google.com> wrote:
>>>> [snip]
>>>>>>  I would, however, get in trouble for not having paid patent
>>>>>> fees for doing so.
>>>>> No more or less trouble than you would have gotten in had you gotten
>>>>> it from ffmpeg instead of us, which combined with the fact that we do
>>>> For the avoidance of doubt,
>>>> Are you stating that when an end user obtains Chrome from Google they
>>>> do not receive any license to utilize the Google distributed FFMPEG
>>>> code to practice the patented activities essential to H.264 and/or AAC
>>>> decoding, which Google licenses for itself?
>>>
>>> I'm not saying that at all. I'm simply saying that any patent license
>>> we may have does [not] cause our distribution of ffmpeg to violate the terms
>>> of the LGPL 2.1
>>
>> I now understand that your statement was only that Google's
>> distribution of FFMPEG is not in violation of the LGPL due to patent
>> licenses. Thank you for clarifying what you have stated. I will ask no
>> further questions on that point.
>>
>>
>> But I do have one further question:
>>
>> Can you please tell me if, when I receive Chrome from you, I also
>> receive the patent licensing sufficient to use the Chrome package to
>> practice the patents listed in MPEG-LA's 'essential' patent list for
>> the decoding of H.264?  I wouldn't want to break any laws.
> Yes, you do.

Ah, that's interesting.


>> I believe I know the answer, based on your statement "No more or less
>> … than … ffmpeg" as ffmpeg explicitly does not provide any patent
>> licensing,
> :)
> Again, that was specifically about ffmpeg as a component of Google
> Chrome, not about Google Chrome as a whole.   Licensing of projects
> that use a lot of open source components with a lot of different
> licenses is a complicated matter, since each component can have a
> license that is separate than the license for the work as a whole.
> I'm trying to make sure I am being as explicit as I can about what
> each subject i am talking about is while still providing answers, so
> that the answers are the actual answer, but as you can imagine, it's
> tricky.  It can be hard to differentiate between the questions people
> want to know an answer that is more general than what they asked, and
> those where they want to know just about that specific thing.  When it
> comes to matters like these, it's usually best for me to just answer
> the question people actually asked explicitly, and let them ask
> followups, than it is to try to anticipate what they really wanted to
> know.  It can come off as dodging at times, but i'm doing the best i
> can ;)

Glad you did, since I think this discussion has clarified a lot of
things - at least for me. Thanks a lot!

Regards,
Silvia.