On 10614 March 1977, Ian Jackson wrote:
> * cdrtools's Makefiles as distributed by upstream (Joerg Schilling)
> do not have a GPL-compatible licence, although the rest of the
> code generally claims to be GPL'd
Generally yes.
> * there is some argument by Joerg Schilling that this is somehow not
> incompatible with the rest of the code being GPL'd, perhaps under
> some peculiarities of German law * there are some other strangenesses
> of cdrtools's licensing
He claims that CDDL is free, Debian hasnt ruled that its not and has no
right to do, as it is free in the OSI sense, so Debian cant say its not
free and has to accept it. Also that Debian hasnt given a good view what
would be a problem with CDDL, so it has no problems. Lalala...
> Although the maintainer of cdrtools is Joerg Jaspert, Steve McIntyre
> and Eduard Bloch are listed in `Uploaders', and Steve made the last
> three maintainer uploads.
Yup.
> So I think Steve means to pass this hot potato, which he thinks is his
> decision, to the TC. Note that Eduard has already said he doesn't
> want to be involved any more, and Joerg Jaspert has not participated
> in the extensive discussion. Steve, am I right ? Joerg, do you
> object to the TC making this decision ?
Eduard is out of that, yes. Steve seems to want to be outside too,
reassigning this bug to you, I would like to fight it, but im also fine
with the TC to help making the following decisions or maybe even take
them and of course giving your input.
> On the merits, the correct course seems clear. cdrtools should be
> removed due for licensing problems at least until GPL-compatible
> Makefiles can be provided.
Its easy to replace the CDDL licensed build-system with a GPL licensed
one, that would be enough for the current issue. But I dont
think its enough for the whole story.
I planned to mail something to -private, to have a discussion there
first, before we do a public thing, but as its already at the ctte, lets
go on here...
Possible Actions:
- Completly remove cdrtools (and all other software from Jörg, which
uses a CDDL-licensed build-system) from Debian, it couldnt even go
into non-free. Announce that, with a clear set of reasons to him,
maybe also via d-d-a to inform our users [1], what we think is wrong
and needs to be fixed. That statement, of course, should be pur
technical and keep all private flames outside. [2]
Or:
- Fork off from a completly GPL-ed cdrtools (or take only the source
from the actual one and replace build-system), name it
debian-cdrtools, and go on as we did now, ie incorporate changes JS
is doing to his software, add our own patches, whenever needed,
etc. Would be more work, and there is also the question - can we go
with the actual version or do we need to go back to an ancient one,
due to the source comments in cdrecord.c? (See [3]).
Or:
- Try to discuss with JS and see if he can understand our points.
The problem here is that it is not easy to discuss with him. He is a
very good coder but not easy to discuss with. Ok, some people have
more problems than others, depends on the personalities that meet
there. :)
For the last point - there was already a heated discussion on the
pkg-cdrtools-devel list[4], mostly between JS and Eduard. I ignored most of
it in the beginning, they produced too many mails. :)
In the end i entered with a few questions to JS, mainly beeing
(translated from German to English only):
--8<------------------------schnipp------------------------->8---
* Is cdrtools GPL or GPL+your-own-extensions?
* Will it stay GPL (if it is)?
* If not - do you have the OK from all authors (that have contributed
more than only some few mini-patches, e.g. mkisofs) to change the
license? If not you cant change it without violating the license.
If that answer is negative we will drop cdrtools from Debian and look
for alternatives, as we don't need a constant fight in Debian with
Upstream who changes and reinterprets the license who he likes it.
--8<------------------------schnapp------------------------->8---
Unfortunately Joerg always ignored those questions...
My preferred point would be the third, but beeing realistic i think
doing the first now (me filing the removal bug on Thursday and removing
it on weekend) and then later come up with point two[5] is the way that
it will go. Where point two should be reasonable soon after the
first. Where reasonable means to give JS a bit of time to answer, have a
discussion, etc. and see where it goes, but to be sure we have a working
cdrecord, mkisofs and cdda2wav in etch for the release.
Footnotes:
[1] after all cdrtools is a widely used software package, where many
people depend on for cd burning and isofs creation...
[2] Which is a bit hard, as many people like to fight with JS, but it
wouldnt help.
[3] http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/c/cdrtools/cdrtools_2.01+01a03-5/copyright
[4] That list is archived on alioth, but the archives are only available
for list members. http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/pkg-cdrtools-devel
has the site for subscription. Hrm, I can probably make an mbox
available for TC members, if needed. But half of the discussion was
in german...
[5] Im happy to help here and stay as Maintainer of the package, but we
*need* help from other people to keep that running, Steve, Eduard
and me can't do that completly alone. Exact details how that
debian-cdrtools should run could be discussed on the list (see point
4) then.
--
bye Joerg
<exa> And mind you, I have always been respectful to every debian
developer EXCEPT Branden.
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