[whatwg] Google's use of FFmpeg in Chromium and Chrome

[King InuYasha]

On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 3:47 PM, Daniel Berlin <dannyb at google.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 4:35 PM, Håkon Wium Lie<howcome at opera.com> wrote:
> > Also sprach Daniel Berlin:
> >
> >  > >>> "For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free
> >  > >>> redistribution of the Library by all those who receive copies
> directly
> >  > >>> or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy
> both it
> >  > >>> and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of
> the
> >  > >>> Library."
> >
> >  > Note that the actual *clause* (not the example) in question says
> >  > "If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your
> >  > obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations,
> >  > then as a consequence you may not distribute the Library at all. "
> >  > It then gives the patent example as an example of when you could not
> >  > fulfill your obligations under the license.  The restrictive license
> >  > in the example falls afoul of this condition (part of #10): "You may
> >  > not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the
> >  > rights granted herein."  Nothing in any licenses we have with other
> >  > parties imposes any *further restrictions* on the recipients who get
> >  > ffmpeg from us.  You get *exactly* the same set of rights and
> >  > obligations we got from ffmpeg.
> >  > As such, we can simultaneously satisfy our obligations under this
> >  > license (which again does not require us to pass along patent rights
> >  > we may have obtained elsewhere, it only requires we grant you the
> >  > rights you find in terms 0-16 and place no further restrictions on
> >  > you) and any patent licenses we may have, and do not run afoul of this
> >  > clause.
> >
> > I get parsing errors in my brain when reading this. While I understand
> > that you do not impose any new restrictions (as per #10), I still
> > don't understand how you can claim that #11 (the first two quotes
> > above) has no relevance in your case. To me, it seems that the example
> > in #11 (the first quote) matches this case exactly -- assuming that
> > Google has a patent license that does not permit royalty-free
> > redistribution.
> As i've said in other messages, this example doesn't match this case
> at all, since the patent license was not given to us by the same
> people who gave us the library, *and* our patent license doesn't even
> say anything about the library used to do encoding/decoding. I.E. Our
> patent license has 0 to say about our distribution of ffmpeg, only
> something to say about our distribution of Chrome, which is only
> covered by section 6 of the LGPL 2.1 (which allows distribution under
> whatever terms we choose so long as we meet certain requirements,
> which we do).
>
> > I also understand that the LGPL doesn't explicitly "require [anyone]
> > to pass along patent rights we may have obtained elsewhere". However,
> > it seems quite clear that the intention of #11 is to say that you
> > cannot redistribute the code unless you do exactly that.
> > What am I missing?
> >
> That our patent license does not restrict/grant/say anything about
> ffmpeg, only Google Chrome, and Google Chrome itself doesn't fall
> under the LGPL 2.1 except through section 6.
>
> --Dan
>


So are you saying you DO have a patent license for ffmpeg and Chrome? Or
don't you?
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