You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.</code></pre><h3data-number="2.2.1"id="gpl-addendum"><spanclass="header-section-number">2.2.1</span> GPL Addendum</h3><p>The <em>non-optional</em> LameXP GNU General Public License addendum is defined as follows:</p><pre><code> LAMEXP GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE ADDENDUM
Version 1.1, March 2020
LameXP is released under the terms of the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
(Version 2, see below) including the following *additional* refinements:
Preamble
It was brought to our attention that some third parties bundle LameXP with
Adware, Spyware or other forms of PUP (potentially unwanted programs).
This addendum has been created to protect our users from such harassments.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING AND DISTRIBUTION
It is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN to bundle the LameXP software with other software
in such a way that launching, installing or downloading the LameXP
software involves the risk of launching, installing or downloading Adware,
Spyware or other forms of PUP (potentially unwanted programs).
It is perfectly allowed to bundle the LameXP software with other software,
provided that the LameXP software still CAN be installed and launched
from the bundle WITHOUT installing and/or launching any other components.
Other components contained in the bundle MUST be opt-in, NOT opt-out.</code></pre><h1data-number="3"id="anti-virus-notes"><spanclass="header-section-number">3</span> Anti-Virus Notes</h1><p>Occasionally, it may happen that your anti-virus software <em>mistakenly</em> detects <ahref="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware">malware</a> (virus, trojan horse, worm, etc.) while you are trying to run the LameXP application or the LameXP setup program. This is called a <ahref="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antivirus_software#Problems_caused_by_false_positives"><strong>false positive</strong></a> and the file actually is <strong>not</strong> malware. Instead, this is an error (bug) in your particular anti-virus software! In case that you encounter this kind problem, we highly recommend using <ahref="http://www.virustotal.com/">VirusTotal.com</a>, <ahref="http://www.virscan.org/">Virscan.org</a> or a similar web-service to check the file in question with <em>multiple</em> anti-virus engines. Unless the vast majority of the anti-virus engines detect malware, it can be assumed that the file is really harmless. However, please take care with <em>heuristic</em> scan results, such as "suspicious", "generic" or "packed". Those results are <strong>not</strong> malware detections – they are highly speculative and (almost certainly) can be ignored safely!</p><p>Defective anti-virus software is an ongoing annoyance! For example, anti-virus programs tend to suspect installers (or uninstallers) created with <ahref="http://nsis.sourceforge.net/">NSIS</a>– which includes the LameXP setup program. But, of course, installers created with NSIS are perfectly legitimate. Thus, if your anti-virus program complains about the LameXP setup program, please ignore the <em>nonsensical</em> warning! Furthermore, it seems that some anti-virus programs accuse <em>all</em> "packed" executables of being malware. Nonetheless, using so-called "executable packers", e.g. <ahref="http://upx.sourceforge.net/">UPX</a>, is perfectly legitimate. Executable packers are commonly used by legitimate software, including numerous OpenSource projects – and so does LameXP. Thus, if your anti-virus program complains about the LameXP program file, because it has been "packed" by UPX, please ignore the <em>nonsensical</em> warning!</p><p>Last but not least: Always keep in mind that LameXP is <em>free software</em>, which means that the <em>source codes</em> of LameXP are freely available. Everybody can easily see that there is <strong><em>no</em></strong> malware of any kind included in the LameXP source code! If you do <em>not</em> trust the provided <em>binaries</em> of LameXP, you may build your own binary directly from the LameXP source codes…</p><h2data-number="3.1"id="reporting-false-positives"><spanclass="header-section-number">3.1</span> Reporting False Positives</h2><p>An important fact to consider is, that, for the developer of a legitimate application, it is <em>impossible</em> to know <strong>why</strong> a specific anti-virus software may be <em>misinterpreting</em> his or her application as malware. That is because anti-virus programs generally are <em>proprietary</em> (ClosedSource) software – anti-virus companies don <em>not</em> publish their source codes or reveal their algorithms. Moreover, a zillion of <em>different</em> anti-virus programs exist nowadays. For these reasons, the application developer can <em>not</em> know what is going on "behind the scenes" in a particular anti-virus software. Consequently, any assumptions on the reasons that are causing the <ahref="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antivirus_software#Problems_caused_by_false_positives"><strong>false positive</strong></a> would be nothing but pure speculation! Even worse, anti-virus software is updated frequently, so the reasons why the anti-virus software is <em>misinterpreting</em> the application as malware may change constantly!</p><p>At this point, it should be clear that implementing <em>workarounds</em> for defective anti-virus software is <strong>not</strong> a
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----</code></pre><h2data-number="9.6"id="q-why-does-lamexp-connect-to-random-web-servers"><spanclass="header-section-number">9.6</span> Q: Why does LameXP connect to (random) web-servers?</h2><p><strong>A:</strong> LameXP does <strong>not</strong> connect to any web-server, except for the "automatic updates" feature. Of course, in order to check for new updates, LameXP <em>unavoidably</em> has to communicate with our update servers. However, in <strong>no</strong> event LameXP will search for updates <em>without</em> your consent. Also, LameXP will <strong>not</strong> send any personal information to the update server. Instead of <em>uploading</em> your information, e.g. your current program version, to the web-server, LameXP will <em>download</em> the update information from the update server and compare it to your installed version locally. Furthermore, all information and program files downloaded from the update servers are protected by PGP (GnuPG) signatures, in order to assure the authenticity and integrity of these files. Files with missing/invalid signature are going to be <em>rejected</em>, so (spoofing) attacks are prevented.</p><p><em>Note:</em> Before LameXP actually tries to download information from our update servers, it will check your Internet connection. Only checking whether the update server itself is reachable does <strong>not</strong> suffice here. In case that the update server does <strong>not</strong> respond, this could mean that our servers are currently experiencing problems, but it could also mean that your Internet connection is failing. In order to distinguish these cases, LameXP will validate the Internet connection prior to connecting to the update server. For this purpose, LameXP contains a rather long list of "known" hosts, taken mostly from <ahref="http://www.alexa.com/topsites">Alexa's Top 500</a> list. In order to validate the Internet connection, LameXP will pick a <em>random</em> host from the list and check whether that host can be reached. This process will be repeated, until a certain minimum number of "known" hosts have been reached.</p><h2data-number="9.7"id="q-can-lamexp-convert-tracks-from-an-audio-cd"><spanclass="header-section-number">9.7</span> Q: Can LameXP convert tracks from an Audio CD?</h2><p><strong>A:</strong> LameXP <em>can</em> be used to convert audio files that have been extracted from an Audio CD, but it currently can <strong>not</strong> extract ("rip") the audio tracks from the Audio CD directly. Consequently you will have to extract the audio tracks first, before you can convert them with LameXP. We recommend using the <ahref="http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/"><em>Exact Audio Copy</em></a> software for that purpose. When ripping tracks from an Audio CD, always save the tracks as <em>uncompressed</em> Wave files (or as lossless FLAC files) in order to avoid quality loss!</p><p><em>Warning:</em> The Windows Explorer will show CDA files (such as <code>Track01.cda</code>) on an Audio CD. These are just <em>dummy</em> files! Actually an Audio CD does <strong>not</strong> contain a file system. Thus there are <strong>no</strong> files either. There only are <em>audio tracks</em> on an Audio CD. These audio tracks <em>can</em> be extracted as files (e.g. Wave Audio files), by using a proper ripping software. Then the extracted files can be converted. At the same time, any attempt to convert the dummy <code>*.cda</code> files is <strong>not</strong> going to work!</p><h2data-number="9.8"id="q-why-does-lamexp-run-only-n-instances-in-parallel"><spanclass="header-section-number">9.8</span> Q: Why does LameXP run (only) N instances in parallel?</h2><p><strong>A:</strong> LameXP can massively speed-up the encoding process by taking advantage of <em>multi-core</em> computers. This is achieved by running <em>multiple</em> encoder (or decoder) instances in parallel. Since most audio encoders are single-threaded and therefore can <strong>not</strong> utilize more than a single CPU core, LameXP will launch one encoder instance p
