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by TheDong 806 days ago
While it's true that ffmpeg's license doesn't require you to release the source code of your application, ffmpeg is GPL, and so it's in good form to also make your application open source.

You can still charge for it just as you do now, but it will also give your users the essential freedoms they deserve.

You wouldn't be able to build this tool so easily without the commons of the open source projects you're building upon, and so it seems fair for you to also contribute back to the same commons.

2 comments

Looks like FFMPEG is mostly LGPL, but there are some GPL parts. You can compile without the GPL parts.

Certainly would be prudent to check out https://ffmpeg.org/legal.html

FFmpeg is not bundled with the app. User will have to install it separately and link it with CompressX. Hope this explains
He's commenting on the spirit of software released under permissive licenses like GPL.

By selling software built on the backs of free developers, you're effectively profiting off of a significant amount of their work.

I hope you donate a nice chunk of money to ffmpeg. https://ffmpeg.org/donations.html

10% of last month revenue was donated to FFmpeg. Thanks for clarifying