Is Handbrake free software?

What is the freedom issue with libfaac? I mean, according to the COPYING file in the source code ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/faac/files/latest/download ), the libfaac is licensed under the GPL. Is there another issue?

FAAC is considered non-free by the FFmpeg project. FFmpeg is LGPL by default and requires that one explicitly enable GPL and non-free libraries during compilation; libfaac is one of the libraries included by the --enable-nonfree switch.

Its website (http://www.audiocoding.com/faac.html) states the following:

---
FAAC is based on the original ISO MPEG reference code. The changes to this code are licensed under the LGPL license. The original license is not compatible with the LGPL, please be aware of this when using FAAC. The original license text can be found in the README file included in the download package.
---

The aforementioned README contains this license (which the developers of FAAC themselves admit is not LGPL-compatible):

---
This software module was originally developed by

FirstName LastName (CompanyName)

and edited by

FirstName LastName (CompanyName)
FirstName LastName (CompanyName)

in the course of development of the MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio standard
ISO/IEC 13818-7, 14496-1,2 and 3. This software module is an
implementation of a part of one or more MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio tools
as specified by the MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio standard. ISO/IEC gives
users of the MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio standards free license to this
software module or modifications thereof for use in hardware or
software products claiming conformance to the MPEG-2 NBC/ MPEG-4 Audio
standards. Those intending to use this software module in hardware or
software products are advised that this use may infringe existing
patents. The original developer of this software module and his/her
company, the subsequent editors and their companies, and ISO/IEC have
no liability for use of this software module or modifications thereof
in an implementation. Copyright is not released for non MPEG-2
NBC/MPEG-4 Audio conforming products. The original developer retains
full right to use the code for his/her own purpose, assign or donate
the code to a third party and to inhibit third party from using the
code for non MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio conforming products. This
copyright notice must be included in all copies or derivative works.

Copyright (c) 1997.
---
The problems with this license, as far as I can see, are that permissions are granted only for "software products claiming conformance to the MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio standards" and that the copyright holder explicitly retains the right to inhibit third parties from using the code.

I investigate a little and found this bug on Ubuntu's LaunchPad: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/faac/+bug/374900

The messages #14 and #15 are interesting. They mention an alternative that seems to be free of licensing issues. It is called ffaac and described as "ffmpeg's internal AAC encoder".

The first good news is HandBrake plans to "drop FAAC in favor of FF-AAC" : https://trac.handbrake.fr/ticket/127

This alternative ( https://trac.handbrake.fr/changeset/4041 ) and another one ( https://trac.handbrake.fr/changeset/4029 ) seems already functional... but faac is still used ( according to https://trac.handbrake.fr/changeset/4031 and to the status of https://trac.handbrake.fr/ticket/127 ).

Would it be easy (like in editing the makefile and removing a directory) to drop faac? Has it already been done by Trisquel? I do not know.

I added an issue:
https://trisquel.info/en/issues/4237

I upgrade to 5.0 and installed Handbrake from the repositories. I noticed
that faac is available for encoding audio despite the fact that the library
is non-free. Shouldn't this library be removed?

What is the freedom issue with libfaac? I mean, according to the COPYING file
in the source code (
http://sourceforge.net/projects/faac/files/latest/download ), the libfaac is
licensed under the GPL. Is there another issue?

FAAC is considered non-free by the FFmpeg project. FFmpeg is LGPL by default
and requires that one explicitly enable GPL and non-free libraries during
compilation; libfaac is one of the libraries included by the --enable-nonfree
switch.

Its website (http://www.audiocoding.com/faac.html) states the following:

---
FAAC is based on the original ISO MPEG reference code. The changes to this
code are licensed under the LGPL license. The original license is not
compatible with the LGPL, please be aware of this when using FAAC. The
original license text can be found in the README file included in the
download package.
---

The aforementioned README contains this license (which the developers of FAAC
themselves admit is not LGPL-compatible):

---
This software module was originally developed by

FirstName LastName (CompanyName)

and edited by

FirstName LastName (CompanyName)
FirstName LastName (CompanyName)

in the course of development of the MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio standard
ISO/IEC 13818-7, 14496-1,2 and 3. This software module is an
implementation of a part of one or more MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio tools
as specified by the MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio standard. ISO/IEC gives
users of the MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio standards free license to this
software module or modifications thereof for use in hardware or
software products claiming conformance to the MPEG-2 NBC/ MPEG-4 Audio
standards. Those intending to use this software module in hardware or
software products are advised that this use may infringe existing
patents. The original developer of this software module and his/her
company, the subsequent editors and their companies, and ISO/IEC have
no liability for use of this software module or modifications thereof
in an implementation. Copyright is not released for non MPEG-2
NBC/MPEG-4 Audio conforming products. The original developer retains
full right to use the code for his/her own purpose, assign or donate
the code to a third party and to inhibit third party from using the
code for non MPEG-2 NBC/MPEG-4 Audio conforming products. This
copyright notice must be included in all copies or derivative works.

Copyright (c) 1997.
---
The problems with this license, as far as I can see, are that permissions are
granted only for "software products claiming conformance to the MPEG-2
NBC/MPEG-4 Audio standards" and that the copyright holder explicitly retains
the right to inhibit third parties from using the code.

I investigate a little and found this bug on Ubuntu's LaunchPad:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/faac/+bug/374900

The messages #14 and #15 are interesting. They mention an alternative that
seems to be free of licensing issues. It is called ffaac and described as
"ffmpeg's internal AAC encoder".

The first good news is HandBrake plans to "drop FAAC in favor of FF-AAC" :
https://trac.handbrake.fr/ticket/127

This alternative ( https://trac.handbrake.fr/changeset/4031 ) and another one
( https://trac.handbrake.fr/changeset/4029 ) seems already functional... but
faac is still used ( still according to
https://trac.handbrake.fr/changeset/4031 and to the status of
https://trac.handbrake.fr/ticket/127 ).

Would it be easy (like in editing the makefile and removing a directory) to
drop faac? Has it already been done by Trisquel? I do not know.

I added an issue:
https://trisquel.info/en/issues/4237