smplayer nagware

[Joonas Sarajärvi]

Hello,

2014-10-30 13:33 GMT+02:00 Tim <ignored_mailbox at yahoo.com.au>:
> I thought I'd escaped from this sort of crap when I shifted to Linux,
> all those years ago.  I've just started up smplayer and got a pop-up
> saying "you can support SMPlayer by sending a donation or sharing it
> with your friends," with buttons to donate with paypal, and so something
> with facebook or twitter.

You are in no way obliged to send money or take other actions, even if
the application mentions that it would be a nice thing to do. Linux
does not require that applications running on it abstain for
mentioning such things either. And even the concept of free software
does not require it.

Given how smplayer is in Rpmfusion-free, my impression is that it is
free software. So you should be free to make a modified version that
does not contain the message that offends you, and it should even be
ok to distribute that. But the original application author is
similarly free to release a version of the software that displays it.
With proprietary software, the original author would not even be
required to give you that possibility. In case of smplayer, you should
have that option.

-Joonas