Re: Pixbuf loader for jpeg2000?

[Sander Vesik <sander vesik sun com>]

Owen Taylor wrote:
> On Fri, 2003-07-11 at 19:23, Chad A Daelhousen wrote:
>
>
> > I had been planning on a separate loader that knew about the format
> > itself, since I couldn't find anything to handle it besides the JasPer
> > reference code.
>
>
> Hmm, I don't think we would want a chunk of code as big as I suspect
> would be needed for jpeg2000 to be in GTK+ itself. The builtin loaders
> for GTK+ are for more or less simple formats that are basically
> just wrappers around the bits.

jpeg2000 is pretty massive.

> If writing a jpeg2000 library was something that you were interested
> in, I'd suggest writing it standalone so everybody could use it,
> then include a gdk-pixbuf loader using your library as part of the
> package.

and please, please please stay inside the area of jpeg2000 that is covered
by free patent grants for jpeg2000 standard.

> > Speaking of JasPer, it appears to be licensed under something similar to
> > the original BSD license. If this pixbuf loader is (eventually) to be
> > included as part of GTK+, is that acceptable, or do I have to get a copy
> > of ISO/IEC 15444-1 and write code from scratch?
>
>
> BSD code with the advertising clause is generally speaking not suitable
> for distribution with GTK+, since it is not GPL compatible.

JasPer licence is not really accurately described as the 4-clause bsd
licence, its quite different. Clauses D, E & F are nothing like the bsd
licence.

> For an independently installed loader, my personal feeling is that if
> you write a independently installed pixbuf loader that:
>
>  A) Uses only symbols from the publically installed GTK+ headers
>  B) Does not incorporate code from GTK+
>  C) Is not written as a paraphrase of code in GTK+

wouldn't this kind of development be covered by lgpl anyways?

> Then it is not a derived work of GTK+, and thus could be under any
> license, even a proprietary license. 
>
> (This is not a legal opinion, though I know of lawyers that have 
> expressed similar opinions in cases that to me seem similar.)
>
> Regards,
> 						Owen