[pulseaudio-tickets] [Bug 41539] Fix PulseAudio 1.0 build for Solaris

[bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org]

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=41539

--- Comment #5 from Brian Cameron <brian.cameron at oracle.com> 2011-10-14 18:40:23 PDT ---

This bug (the fact that things that link against PulseAudio need to link
against libpulsecore to resolve symbols) makes me realize that there is
probably a more serious licensing issue here.  I just read the LICENSE file in
PulseAudio and it says:

----

All PulseAudio source files are licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public
License. (see file LGPL for details)

However, the server side links to the GPL-only library 'libsamplerate' which
practically downgrades the license of the server part to GPL (see file GPL for
details), exercising section 3 of the LGPL.

Hence you should treat the client library ('libpulse') of PulseAudio as being
LGPL licensed and the server part ('libpulsecore') as being GPL licensed. Since
the PulseAudio daemon and the modules link to 'libpulsecore' they are of course
also GPL licensed.

----

Since it seems now that libpulse and libpulsecommon need symbols from
libpulsecore, doesn't this mean that any program that links against Pulse must
be a GPL'ed program.  I notice that even the GStreamer PulseAudio plugin needs
to link against libpulsecore, which I guess makes all GStreamer based programs
GPL.

Is this intentional, or do people just build PulseAudio without libsamplerate
if they wish to avoid making everything that uses it GPL?  Or is the LICENSE
file wrong?

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