4 Most files in FFmpeg are under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1
5 or later (LGPL v2.1+). Read the file COPYING.LGPLv2.1 for details. Some other
6 files have MIT/X11/BSD-style licenses. In combination the LGPL v2.1+ applies to
9 Some optional parts of FFmpeg are licensed under the GNU General Public License
10 version 2 or later (GPL v2+). See the file COPYING.GPLv2 for details. None of
11 these parts are used by default, you have to explicitly pass --enable-gpl to
12 configure to activate them. In this case, FFmpeg's license changes to GPL v2+.
14 Specifically, the GPL parts of FFmpeg are
18 - optional x86 optimizations in the files
19 libavcodec/x86/idct_mmx.c
20 - libutvideo encoding/decoding wrappers in
21 libavcodec/libutvideo*.cpp
22 - the X11 grabber in libavdevice/x11grab.c
23 - the swresample test app in
24 libswresample/swresample-test.c
25 - the texi2pod.pl tool
26 - the following filters in libavfilter:
39 There are a handful of files under other licensing terms, namely:
41 * The files libavcodec/jfdctfst.c, libavcodec/jfdctint_template.c and
42 libavcodec/jrevdct.c are taken from libjpeg, see the top of the files for
43 licensing details. Specifically note that you must credit the IJG in the
44 documentation accompanying your program if you only distribute executables.
45 You must also indicate any changes including additions and deletions to
46 those three files in the documentation.
48 Should you, for whatever reason, prefer to use version 3 of the (L)GPL, then
49 the configure parameter --enable-version3 will activate this licensing option
50 for you. Read the file COPYING.LGPLv3 or, if you have enabled GPL parts,
51 COPYING.GPLv3 to learn the exact legal terms that apply in this case.
57 Some external libraries, e.g. libx264, are under GPL and can be used in
58 conjunction with FFmpeg. They require --enable-gpl to be passed to configure
61 The OpenCORE external libraries are under the Apache License 2.0. That license
62 is incompatible with the LGPL v2.1 and the GPL v2, but not with version 3 of
63 those licenses. So to combine the OpenCORE libraries with FFmpeg, the license
64 version needs to be upgraded by passing --enable-version3 to configure.
66 The nonfree external libraries libfaac and libaacplus can be hooked up in FFmpeg.
67 You need to pass --enable-nonfree to configure to enable it. Employ this option
68 with care as FFmpeg then becomes nonfree and unredistributable.