However, in the case of codec patents, like that of H.264, the new MPEG video standard, SCOTUS and patent cases have routinely upheld the validity of similar software patents.įor an overview of relevant statutes, I would point to the USPTO documents, which outline the standards that most software patents are viewed under (by the USPTO and many practicing US patent lawyers). You are correct that software patents can be nebulous. For example, patents on drugs are routinely upheld in US courts. First, you mistake software patents for many traditional patents. While I would agree that patents are often subject to different regulations and burdens of proof, your assumption that all patent cases are flimsy is without basis. They are both forms of intellectual property law. Well, I wouldn't say they don't have anything to do with each other.

The BSD license seems a bit more intellectually honest. The GPL and it's variants are too overtly political for my tastes. My personal feeling is if you want to do 'free software' you should remember the whole free part. If you make a situation confusing you cannot be angry when people get confused. Just seems like they aren't really helping themselves here either. I'm not arguing that the FFMPEG folks don't deserve respect and adherence to their license terms. If it is a derivative work, then the terms must allow 'modification for the customer's own use and reverse engineering for debugging such modifications.' This non-(L)GPLed program can then be distributed under any chosen terms if it is not a derivative work. The main difference between the GPL and the LGPL is that the latter can be linked to (in the case of a library, 'used by') a non-(L)GPLed program, and regardless of whether it is free software or proprietary software. If you're not a license expert and you happen to lookup LGPL on the wiki for some guidance you get: I'm looking at their license policy page and I don't see any obvious link to a non-English version. They choose the LGPL which is certainly a less known/understood license and they tack on a bunch of extra requirements. Some of the blame goes back to the FFMPEG folks.

Ffmpeg windows lgpl