GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
0. Scope
This License applies to any program or other
work which contains a notice placed by the
copyright holder saying it may be distributed
under the terms of this General Public License.
The "Program", below, refers to any such program
or work, and a "work based on the Program" means
either the Program or any derivative work under
copyright law: that is to say, a work containing
the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim
or with modifications and/or translated into
another language. (Hereinafter, translation is
included without limitation in the term
"modification".) Each licensee is addressed as
"you". Activities other than copying,
distribution and modification are not covered by
this License; they are outside its scope. The
act of running the Program is not restricted,
and the output from the Program is covered only
if its contents constitute a work based on the
Program (independent of having been made by
running the Program). Whether that is true
depends on what the Program does.
1. Verbatim Copies
You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of
the Program's source code as you receive it, in
any medium, provided that you conspicuously and
appropriately publish on each copy an
appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of
warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer
to this License and to the absence of any
warranty; and give any other recipients of the
Program a copy of this License along with the
Program. You may charge a fee for the physical
act of transferring a copy, and you may at your
option offer warranty protection in exchange for
a fee.
2. Modifications and Derivative Works
You may modify your copy or copies of the
Program or any portion of it, thus forming a
work based on the Program, and copy and
distribute such modifications or work under the
terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also
meet all of these conditions:
a) You must cause the modified files to carry
prominent notices stating that you changed the
files and the date of any change.
b) You must cause any work that you distribute
or publish, that in whole or in part contains or
is derived from the Program or any part thereof,
to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all
third parties under the terms of this License.
c) If the modified program normally reads
commands interactively when run, you must cause
it, when started running for such interactive
use in the most ordinary way, to print or
display an announcement including an appropriate
copyright notice and a notice that there is no
warranty (or else, saying that you provide a
warranty) and that users may redistribute the
program under these conditions, and telling the
user how to view a copy of this License.
These requirements apply to the modified work as
a whole. If identifiable sections of that work
are not derived from the Program, and can be
reasonably considered independent and separate
works in themselves, then this License, and its
terms, do not apply to those sections when you
distribute them as separate works. But when you
distribute the same sections as part of a whole
which is a work based on the Program, the
distribution of the whole must be on the terms
of this License, whose permissions for other
licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus
to each and every part regardless of who wrote
it. Thus, it is not the intent of this section
to claim rights or contest your rights to work
written entirely by you; rather, the intent is
to exercise the right to control the
distribution of derivative or collective works
based on the Program. In addition, mere
aggregation of another work not based on the
Program with the Program (or with a work based
on the Program) on a volume of a storage or
distribution medium does not bring the other
work under the scope of this License.
3. Binary Distribution and Source Code
Access
You may copy and distribute the Program (or a
work based on it, under Section 2) in object
code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do
one of the following: a) Accompany it with the
complete corresponding machine-readable source
code; or b) Accompany it with a written offer,
valid for at least three years, to give any
third party a complete machine-readable copy of
the corresponding source code; or c) Accompany
it with the information you received as to the
offer to distribute corresponding source code.
The source code for a work means the preferred
form of the work for making modifications to it.
For an executable work, complete source code
means all the source code for all modules it
contains, plus any associated interface
definition files, plus the scripts used to
control compilation and installation of the
executable.
4. Termination of Rights
You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or
distribute the Program except as expressly
provided under this License. Any attempt
otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or
distribute the Program is void, and will
automatically terminate your rights under this
License. However, parties who have received
copies, or rights, from you under this License
will not have their licenses terminated so long
as such parties remain in full compliance.
5. Acceptance by Action
You are not required to accept this License,
since you have not signed it. However, nothing
else grants you permission to modify or
distribute the Program or its derivative works.
These actions are prohibited by law if you do
not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying
or distributing the Program, you indicate your
acceptance of this License to do so.
6. Automatic Licensing to Recipients
Each time you redistribute the Program (or any
work based on the Program), the recipient
automatically receives a license from the
original licensor to copy, distribute or modify
the Program subject to these terms and
conditions. You may not impose any further
restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the
rights granted herein.
7. Conflicts with Other Obligations
If, as a consequence of a court judgment or
allegation of patent infringement or for any
other reason, conditions are imposed on you that
contradict the conditions of this License, they
do not excuse you from the conditions of this
License. If you cannot distribute so as to
satisfy simultaneously your obligations under
this License and any other pertinent
obligations, then as a consequence you may not
distribute the Program at all.
8. Geographical Limitations
If the distribution and/or use of the Program is
restricted in certain countries either by
patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
original copyright holder who places the Program
under this License may add an explicit
geographical distribution limitation excluding
those countries.
9. Revised Versions of the GPL
The Free Software Foundation may publish revised
and/or new versions of the General Public
License from time to time. Such new versions
will be similar in spirit to the present
version, but may differ in detail to address new
problems or concerns.
10. Requesting Exceptions
If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program
into other free programs whose distribution
conditions are different, write to the author to
ask for permission. For software which is
copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation,
write to the Free Software Foundation.
11. NO WARRANTY
BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE,
THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE
EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. THE
COPYRIGHT HOLDERS PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS"
WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
OR IMPLIED.
12. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW
WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR
DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL,
INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT
OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM.
LICENSE INTERPRETATION AND USE CASES
If you publish, distribute or allow a third
party to use a copy of your product, the open
source license requires you to release your
product source code and automatically grants all
third parties a license to your product source
code and the ability to use it under the open
source license.
Internal Use Exception
If you use the x265 Software under the open
source license and you publish, distribute or
allow a third party to use your product – then
everyone is automatically granted a license from
you to use, copy and distribute your product
source code under Version 2.0 of the GPL. If you
are using the x265 Software as part of an
internal video encoding system and do not
publish, distribute or allow a third party to
use your encoding system, then your use under
the open source license does not grant third
parties a license to the source code of your
system.
Open Source Disclosure Requirements
If you are required to disclose your source
code, the GPL requires that you disclose all the
source code of any software that includes or
links to the x265 Software or any portion of the
x265 Software. The "linkage" provision creates
an expansive obligation of the source code that
must be disclosed.
Downloading x265 Source Code
If you distribute a product that downloads or
requires the customer to download the x265
Software (or any portion of it), then it is the
same as including the x265 Software in your
product. You cannot avoid your product being
classified as a distribution by having your
product or customer download the x265 Software.
Specific Use Cases
Hardware/Software Sales: If you
sell or perpetually license your product to a third
party, this is clearly a distribution and the open
source license automatically grants a license to
all third parties and requires the release of your
product source code.
Term Licensing: If you create a
copy of your product and grant a customer the right
to use the product, whether you make money or not,
this constitutes a distribution and requires that
you release your product source code.
Internal Use: If you use your product
internally and do not distribute or allow third parties
to use it, you can use the x265 Software under the
open source license without triggering the automatic
license grant.
Cloud Based Software as a Service (SaaS)
The determining factor in most cases is
"distribution". In the case of cloud services,
it comes down to control – if the cloud service
allows the customer to control its use of the
software instance, then it constitutes a
distribution. If you can schedule multiple
customers' video content on the same software
instance, then the service provider is in
control and it falls within the Internal Use
exception. If your customer gets exclusive use
of the server instance, then it is effectively a
distribution.
Mobile Apps
Since an app is being distributed to third
parties via app stores, the open source license
automatically grants a license and requires that
you release the source code for your app if it
incorporates x265 under the GPL.
Integration and Third-Party Development
Proprietary Software Integration: When you incorporate proprietary components from
vendors with the x265 open source software, the vendor's
proprietary software becomes subject to the open
source license if they are linked into the same program.
This is why most developers choose a commercial license
for proprietary integrations.
Third Party Development: As long
as the developer assigns all their ownership rights
to the company, then there is no difference between
internal development and hiring a contractor. If
the developer is allowed to retain rights, then this
becomes a distribution.
