Copyright vs. patents, source code vs. compiled binaries, etc., [TOS #5: split from “Open Source Fraunhofer AAC Encoder”/thread 95989] Options

[D404]

Android 4.1 has included an AAC encoding library by Fraunhofer, and Libav/FFmpeg support for this library is in the works (that is, in a day or two, it will be official.)

From the release announcement:

As part of the Android Jelly Bean source code released recently, a new AAC
library was released as well, developed by Fraunhofer:
https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/aac

To ease using this library on platforms other than Android, I have added
an autotools based build system and done a minor portability fix, and
released this code as fdk-aac 0.1.0 today.

This project is hosted at sourceforge, under the opencore-amr project,
acting as an umbrella project for these codecs that are repackaged from
Android as standalone libraries, just as opencore-amr, vo-amrwbenc and
vo-aacenc before this one.

The release file is available at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/opencore-amr/files/fdk-aac/
and the code is available in git at
git://opencore-amr.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/opencore-amr/fdk-aac.

This library is licensed under a custom copyleft style license:
http://opencore-amr.git.sourceforge.net/gi...a=blob;f=NOTICE

I in general intend to limit this project to minor tweaks and portability
fixes - for anything larger than that, I'd prefer if it first is
contributed upstream, to keep the difference between the upstream code and
this library as small as possible.

Edit: Obvious patent violation removed.

It can be used as such:

Bitrate Mode

CODE

avconv -i <input> -c:a libfdk_aac -b:a <bitrate> -afterburner 1 <output>

VBR Mode

CODE

aconv -i <input> -c:a libfdk_aac -flags +qscale -global_quality [1-5] -afterburner 1 <output>

VBR modes 1-5 correspond to roughly:

1. about 32 kbps/channel
2. about 40 kbps/channel
3. about 48-56 kbps/channel
4. about 64 kbps/channel
5. about 80-96 kbps/channel

-afterburner 1 enabkes "improved quality" mode.

Cheers.

Edit: This should be moved to the Tech forum.

This post has been edited by Garf: Jul 11 2012, 19:30

[Garf]

Off hand I can't think of any that force you to also provide patent licenses to go with the software license, since in practice that would be almost impossible to know which patents were covered and which were not.

GPL includes a patent license for all patents you own and apply to the software. You'd obviously know which of your own patents applies.

At least in GPL3 there are also provisions that block you from relying on a patent license to be able to convey a work covered by one. (But I find the clauses a bit strange because they are null as long as you also convey source code - which the GPL requires you anyway?)

But yes, no open source license requires you to acquire licenses for any patent the software might infringe before you can distribute it - because that's obviously impossible.

[Brazil2]

Edit: Obvious patent violation removed.

This post has been edited by Garf: Yesterday, 20:30

GPL includes a patent license for all patents you own and apply to the software. You'd obviously know which of your own patents applies.

At least in GPL3 there are also provisions that block you from relying on a patent license to be able to convey a work covered by one. (But I find the clauses a bit strange because they are null as long as you also convey source code - which the GPL requires you anyway?)

But yes, no open source license requires you to acquire licenses for any patent the software might infringe before you can distribute it - because that's obviously impossible.

So why posting a link to a compiled avconv is a patent violation but posting a link to its source code isn't ?

[Garf]

So why posting a link to a compiled avconv is a patent violation but posting a link to its source code isn't ?

Ask the people who make the laws. The reasoning is (AFAIK/IANAL) that source code itself doesn't actually do anything, so it can't infringe.

See for example:
Does LAME use any MP3 patented technology?