[Meego-architecture] There is a license conflict between Tracker and GStreamer proprietary codec plug-ins

[Lin, Mengdong]

We are from SSG/SSD/OTC MeeGo media development team. Now we're blocked by a license issue between tracker and GStreamer proprietary codec plug-ins.

Now all MeeGo media applications depend on tracker to list the media files and to extract meta data. These applications include image viewer, music player and video player.

However, there is a license conflict:
Tracker-extract, the tracker component to extract the meta data is released under GPL. It will call GStreamer decoderbin2 to extract the meta data for many media types, so the proprietary GStreamer codec plug-ins can be loaded into this process. Thus GPL and proprietary components coexist in the same process.

We found this risk when supporting DRM because GStreamer plug-ins that support DRM are all proprietary. But even if DRM is not considered, there are proprietary GStreamer plug-ins are involved as mentioned above.

We have raised this license issue to Tracker community. They are considering relicensing tracker-extract from GPL to LGPL. Please refer to this mail loop:
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/tracker-list/2010-December/msg00005.html
Since Nokia is the copyright owner of tracker, the tracker's core maintainer team has raised the issue to Nokia and relicensing needs Nokia's agreement.

We want to know whether the relicense could happen ASAP so that MeeGo release won't be affected. Both tracker and those GStreamer plug-ins are necessary for the media applications. We hope the architecture team can help to push relicensing tracker-extract.

Thanks & Best Regards
Amanda


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