Commercial usage of MPD and (illegal) products based on it

[crumcode]

Several vendors are using MPD:

https://www.musicpd.org/commercial.html

 

Based on the information on this page, several companies are using the free open source Music Player Daemon without abiding to the GPL terms.
Some vendors have even managed to compile the proprietary MQA codec into MPD, therefore requiring the MQA source code to be released as well, or be banned from further distributing the custom MPD binary.

The list of offenders is severe:

- Cary Audio has compiled both the Roon SDK and MQA codec into their version of MPD, and tried to disable their update server when the violation was reported on the MPD mailing list. They also failed to deliver the modified code to Max Kellermann, the main copyright owner of MPD. By consequence, Cary can now no longer use MPD, rendering the DMS 500 streamer an illegal product. They provided a redacted version of their MPD source, which does not even compile, in an attempt to hide the truth:

http://mailman.blarg.de/pipermail/mpd-devel/2018-February/000698.html

- Euphony audio is using a custom kernel and also MPD, but has failed to provide the source code of these open source packages.

https://www.musicpd.org/commercial.html see the section about Euphony

- long time MPD user Aurender has finally put up a GPL download center, after years of hiding they were using MPD and selling it as auplayer. They use a very old 0.16 release, which is 7 years old.

http://files.aurender.com/opensource.html

Some vendors are combining MQA decoding combined with open source players such as MPD and Squeezelite. This is very dangerous, as the GPL is a license which requires you to release all parts of the modified work, which means that because of what Cary audio did, MQA is now either open source, or Cary loses their right to distribute such modified work when NOT releasing the integral modified work.

Cary Audio users owning a DMS 500 now basically have an illegal product as it contains illegal software.

[rickca]

@vortecjr what's your take on this?  Is this accurate?  How does it affect your plans to do MQA core decoding on Sonore streamers?

[Ben-M]

I've wondered about this for a along time. I couldn't understand how any of these private, for profit companies were using MPD and not releasing their source code as well. Seems they were trying to take ownership of existing, open source work and package it as their own. In this small circle of audio, that's some pretty greasy shit. 

 

I know this isn't exactly the whole story, but I'd certainly love for this to get more attention and more feedback from the parties involved and other members of the trade.  

[vortecjr]

4 hours ago, rickca said:

@vortecjr what's your take on this?  Is this accurate?  How does it affect your plans to do MQA core decoding on Sonore streamers?

I have know Max since we have been in this industry and I like him, I respect him, and I trust him. Max is a Linux audio legend who quite frankly does not get enough credit for his work and as such some of this is disheartening. While I can't speak about each case mentioned being accurate or not from the emails I have been copied on Max is being fair, direct, he is being very patient, and he is giving the companies a chance to respond and makes things right if needed. I can tell you there are a lot more companies using MPD compared to his list and I have often wondered about some of them.  

 

We have been working on our implemintation of MQA for over a year now and spend a lot of money in the process. If I thought our solution was not legitimate I would not hesitate to drop the project. I told my team on day one that we had to do it better than anyone else because upon release I knew our solution would be challenged. Our solution is awesome and I have been contemplating even sharing it with other companies. To answer your question this does not affect our plans in anyway.

[Norton]

What's the significance  of "not yet requested" which most seem to fall into?  I find it hard to believe, for example, that Bryston would be anything other than scrupulous in such matters.

[vortecjr]

14 minutes ago, Norton said:

What's the significance  of "not yet requested" which most seem to fall into?  I find it hard to believe, for example, that Bryston would be anything other than scrupulous in such matters.

No significance...it means what it says. 

[Norton]

21 minutes ago, vortecjr said:

No significance...it means what it says. 

 

I thought  perhaps  there was an inference that it shouldn't need to be requested, e.g that companies should be pro-actively making their MPD developments available?

[Guest]

Bryston is another company using MPD.

 

Lazy on their part.

 

ALSA player would make an excellent base, ie something to build on for a commercial product. One or two very good coders could take it and make it into a client server configuration or any other. And as an added bonus get a player made specifically to work with ALSA and imo sounds better than MPD.

[Elon]

It is important to note that it is perfectly legal to use mpd (or any other GPL software) in a commercial product.  It is only illegal to modify the code, put it in a commercial product, and not publically release your changes.

 

For most companies that release streamer products (Bryston, et al), they are probably using unmodified copies of mpd.

 

Also, linking to new libraries, or recompiling with different support is not illegal, as long as no code modifications are made.  Similarly, you can put functionality into external libraries which you aren't required to release.  It is also possible that companies release their changes, but do so anonymously, or otherwise don't draw a bright line between the contributor and the company backing them.

 

That said, it does sound like some of these companies have been in violation of the GPL.