[LAU] ffmpeg or libav

[drew Roberts]

On Sunday 13 January 2013 08:33:39 Paul Davis wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 4:13 AM, Dan MacDonald <allcoms at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If you happen not to like it and you are pro copyrights and non-free
> > software then [... ]
>
> just to nitpick ... "pro-copyrights" makes no sense. The GPL is founded in
> and on copyright law. Without copyrights, the GPL would be unenforceable,
> and arguably meaningless.

Hardly. The belief is that software should not be subject to copyright. GPL is 
the legal judo to try to get to that state where the law has not changed.

The only thing lost were software to be made not subject to copyright would be 
the ability to require source code. I think I recall RMS writing to the 
effect that without copyright, the benefit of hiding source would go away for 
most? software.

(The above really only holds where software is also not subject to patent 
protection as well I think.)

In essence it depends on copyright to undo copyright effects. Without 
copyright law, copyright law would have no negative effects to undo.

all the best,

drew