[whatwg] [gnu.org #451052] LGPL Question regarding Google's use of FFmpeg in Chromium and Chrome

[Nils Dagsson Moskopp]

Am Dienstag, den 09.06.2009, 15:37 -0400 schrieb Donald R Robertson III
via RT:
> Would you mind summarizing the issue? I found a wall of text at the link
> you provided, that presented a couple of different issues. 

My understanding is that Google has used the LGPL-2.1-licensed FFmpeg
library to provide h.264 decoding in their closed-source Chrome Browser.
They, however, seem to have to acquired a license from the MPEG LA so to
not violate any patents.

Now, does this license preclude them from distributing FFmpeg, possibly
according to section 11 of the LGPL 2.1 ? Also, what if other software
uses the FFmpeg library to decode h.264 - has the patent license of
Google any effect on this ?

This post on the list by Chris DiBona, Google's Open Source Programs
Manager may give further insights to the debate:
http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-June/020035.html


Cheers (and many apologies for my poor legalese parsing skills)
-- 
Nils Dagsson Moskopp
<http://dieweltistgarnichtso.net>