On Wed, 2 Feb 2005, Jeremy C. Reed wrote:

> pkgsrc/audio/lame has:
>
> LICENSE=       fee-based-commercial-use
>
> $ make show-license
> Generic fee-based-commercial-use information not available
> See the package description (pkg_info -d lame-3.96.1nb1) for more
> information.
>
> But that only gives information after it is installed.
>
> Several months ago I found:
>
> Can I use LAME in my commercial program?
>
> Yes, you can, under the restrictions of the LGPL.  The easiest
> way to do this is to:
>
> 1. Link to LAME as separate library (libmp3lame.a on unix or
>    lame_enc.dll on windows)
>
> 2. Fully acknowledge that you are using LAME, and give a link
>    to our web site, www.mp3dev.org
>
> 3. If you make modifications to LAME, you *must* release these
>    these modifications back to the LAME project, under the LGPL.
>
>
> *** IMPORTANT NOTE ***
>
> The decoding functions provided in LAME use the mpglib decoding engine
> which is under the GPL.  They may not be used by any program not released
> under the GPL unless you obtain such permission from the MPG123 project
> (www.mpg123.de).
>
>
> I also saw the email mentioning patent issue:
>
>  http://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-pkg/2004/10/25/0018.html
>
>
> Can we add a license that can be viewed easily before building package?

I found more details in lame-3.96.1/mpglib/README, frontend/parse.c, and
libmp3lame/fft.c that warn about potential patent issues.

> lame is used by a lot -- is there an alternative? (I can't tell from
> toolame and lame DESCRiptions.)
>
> (I am working on upgrading avidemux again and it uses lame and toolame.)

 Jeremy C. Reed

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