[Debburn-devel] License of cdrkit - GPLv2 + additional restrictions

[Markus Laire]

On 9/14/06, Eduard Bloch <edi at gmx.de> wrote:
> #include <hallo.h>
> * Markus Laire [Thu, Sep 14 2006, 03:37:11PM]:
>
> > I mentioned this problem over a week ago[5] at debburn-devel but
> > didn't get any response.
>
> Because the hard problems that you pointed out have been fixed. We do no
> longer return "schily" author ID, etc.

That wasn't the problem I mentioned. And the problem I mentioned
hasn't been fixed yet. (e.g. cdrecord/cdrecord.c still contains an
unmodifiable section)

> > Unfortunately Eduard Bloch (one of the people behind this fork)
> > doesn't see any problem here[8]:
>
> That is not what I said, don't put your words into my mouth.

That's how I interpreted your message. I did include your answer so
others can easily check this.

Should I try to be more carefull about how I speak of these things?

> > >> (dvdrtools is in non-free solely because of the libscg "You may not"
> > >lines, which
> > >> are *also* present in cdrkit.  Um.... there's some small problem there.)
> > >
> > >If you see a concrete problem, point it out. Or stop talking like there
> > >were a problem.
> > In my opinion there is clearly a concrete problem as there are
> > restrictions in the source-code which are not allowed by GPLv2.
> >
> >
> > So I'd now like to ask what debian-legal thinks about this situation,
> > and whether the license of cdrkit is OK for Debian-main.
>
> I would like to ask you to give us some days to find a peacefull
> solution without starting another flamewar. But, hey, you already did it
> by Cc'ing debian-legal and so attracting the trolls ASAP. Very
> diplomatic. NOT.

I did post to debburn-devel first, and only after I didn't get any
response, and it seemed to me that this wouldn't be fixed, did I post
to debian-legal.

Also, it's possible that I should report a "serious"[1] bug for this,
but I wanted to ask about this from debian-legal first, to know if
others agree that this is a problem.


ps. It seems that some messages in this thread[2,3] were posted only
to debian-legal and not to debburn-devel. I'm not sure about what the
usual policy is in multi-list threads, so I'll answer to same threads
which the post I'm answering to used.

[1] http://release.debian.org/etch_rc_policy.txt
[2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/09/msg00078.html
[3] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/debburn-devel/2006-September/000053.html

-- 
Markus Laire