OggSQUISH Distribution Terms

INTENT OF TERMS:

If you're not making money, or plan to make money on OggSQUISH, have fun for free :-) You are welcome to the source, and may use it in your own programs, free and clear (so long as your own programs are also available as 'freeware'; that is, not commercial or used in commercial products). You are welcome to use OggSQUISH in any way you wish with other programs. You are encouraged to distribute OggSQUISH for free; these distribution terms will be included with the beta release of the code.

If you want to use OggSQUISH in a business in some way, you are encouraged to do so! Xiphophorus will, however, generally ask a small fee based on the number of copies in use. We intend to keep such licensing fees very low (after all, we want it to be much cheaper than it would take for someone else to just write their own!) Contact us for licensing and purchasing information.

Sometime soon, we expect you to be able to buy OggSQUISH software from your local software retailer. Buying such a copy would be like buying any other software package from a store; you can use that one copy for any purpose that comes to mind.

xiphmont@mit.edu
mjperson@mit.edu
January 12, 1996
Updated May 8, 1996

SPECIFIC TERMS:

OggSQUISH is not public domain, nor is it Gnu Public License freeware. OggSQUISH is a commercial product that is freely usable and distributable for non profit and personal use. Essentially, non-profit and personal users are granted an implicit, free license for not-for-profit use. Xiphophorus guarantees that a version of the current full OggSQUISH codec will always be reliably available for such use (That is, we're not going to do what CompuServe did with the GIF format). Xiphophorus reserves the right to release public domain implementations of OggSQUISH in the future.

OggSQUISH must be explicitly licensed (possibly for a fee, but not necessarily) from Xiphophorus if:

  1. OggSQUISH is being used as an integral part of a business' operations. For example, if the business charges for a service, part of which at any point is the use of OggSQUISH, then OggSQUISH must be licensed according to the number of copies in use. If a business charges for a product, part of the production of which entails that company's use of OggSQUISH, the copies of OggSQUISH used in production must be licensed.

    OggSQUISH bitstreams are, of course, independent of the codec and free from any licensing requirements. A company does not need to license to distribute bitstreams, only create them with this OggSQUISH package.

  2. OggSQUISH is bundled in a commercial software package. The bundler must secure a license for bundling (which, of course, would cover the purchaser).
  3. developing an Ogg compatible codec based on (or referring to) the OggSQUISH codec source. This does not necessarily involve any fee. Developing a 'clean room' codec from the OggSQUISH specification (freely available) does not require any license, but Xiphophorus does request that we be informed of such a codec as a matter of courtesy (in the case that such development is commercial, of course we do not request information about secret development. Send us some ad copy upon release :)

    Note also that some of the C files that make up the OggSQUISH package have been released (individually) to the public domain. These files may be used for any purpose whatsoever, outside of the distribution policy of the rest of the codec. These files are clearly marked within the distribution, and are also available separately from the protected portions of the source.

Of course, support and consulting services involving OggSQUISH and compression services in general are available directly from Xiphophorus.

You do NOT need to license OggSQUISH if:

  1. The copy is for personal use.
  2. The copy was purchased in a licensed bundle.
In the following cases, we ask that you explicitly request a license, although the license is guaranteed and free:
  1. The copy is for non-profit use by an institution of education (University, grade school, museum, etc.)
  2. The copy is for use in a registered non-profit organization.
  3. The copy is to be used internal to a business for limited evaluation purposes only.
xiphmont@mit.edu

OggSQUISH, OggScript, OggLite, the Thor-and-the-Snake logo and Xiphophorus are trademarks (tm) of the Xiphophorus company. The OggSQUISH library and OggSQUISH applications by Xiphophorus are copyright (C) 1994-1996 Xiphophorus. All rights reserved.

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