Re: Xvid and commercial games

James,

there is no need to pose the same question at different places again and
again. The answer will remain the same.

Xvid is published under the terms of the GNU General Public License. If
you distribute Xvid together with some other program for use in combination
(so the programs call upon each other at runtime) this makes up a derivative
work and requires you to publish the package as a whole under the GPL.

The crucial point here is the combined _distribution_. Whether you
incorporate the GPLed program as static or dynamic library or in which
order you run the installers of your proprietary program and the GPLed
library upon installation is irrelevant. If you do not want to publish
your program under the terms of the GPL simply refrain from distributing
it together with GPLed software.

Regards,
Michael


Quoting [email protected]:

> Hello,
>
> I'm creating a commercial pre-rendered adventure game, and I'm using  =

>  Xvid to compress the video.
> I need a way to=A0distribute the xivd decoding software to the end   =

> user, and I wonder if
> I can do this(legally, of course:)).
> Some options that I wonder if are acceptable:
> 1. Take the Xvid installer, and have it run following the main installati=
on..
> 2. Take the neccesary DLLs, and place them in on of the games data   =

> folders(called "external") and then compile the installer, with the   =

> xvid DLLs therfore copying to the enduser computer.
> Are any of these legal and functional? Or is there an alternative?
> =A0
> Thanks,
> =A0 James
>
>
>
>