Feature changed by: Tim Edwards (tk83) Feature #311186, revision 11 Title: original cdrtools Package Wishlist: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Important Requested by: Christopher Yeleighton (yecril71pl) Partner organization: openSUSE.org Description: openSuSE distributes the package wodim instead of the package cdrtools. The reason this happens is a claim of the Debian maintainers that the present license of the package cdrtools is incompatible with GPL. However, even if it were the case, it does not make a good reason to exclude cdrtools from openSuSE. Business case (Partner benefit): openSUSE.org: cdrtools is better maintained and it is less buggy. Discussion: #1: Christopher Yeleighton (yecril71pl) (2011-01-31 22:22:32) See also: Many Linux distributions now come with broken variants of cdrtools (http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/linux-dist.html) #2: Tim Edwards (tk83) (2011-02-07 12:39:23) This topic has been done to death, not least in the huge flamewar on the Debian mailing list between the cdrecord author and some of the Debian developers. It's not based on some half-arsed claim by the Debian maintainers either: all the major distributions, including the commercial ones Redhat and Novell, have looked at the legal implications of the license on cdrecord and determined that they can't legally distribute it. This is a very good reason for not including cdrtools in Opensuse. Plus, cdrkit (wodim etc.) is still being developed. #3: Christopher Yeleighton (yecril71pl) (2011-02-07 13:07:03) (reply to #2) Any documents to back up your claims? I am particularly interested in an official and verifiable statement for Novell. #4: Tim Edwards (tk83) (2011-02-07 13:30:43) (reply to #3) You can read the whole sordid tale here: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=377109 (http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=377109) Even some of the Debian developers believed that the licence change was motivated by personal problems between them and Joerg Schilling. Redhat's reasoning for the Fedora project: https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-legal-list/2009-July/msg00000.html (https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-legal-list/2009-July/msg00000.html) From some of the Opensuse developers: http://lists.suse.de/opensuse-factory/2009-07/msg00054.html (http://lists.suse.de/opensuse-factory/2009-07/msg00054.html) Note here that the developers don't believe that patches to cdrecord get accepted upstream. And also that since these messages were posted cdrkit has started releasing again. Discussion on this is just beating a long dead horse - if you want cdrecord just head over to software. opensuse.org untick "Exclude user's home projects" and search - it's there. #5: Tim Edwards (tk83) (2011-02-07 14:26:01) (reply to #4) If you want official statements try the release notes: http://www.novell.com/linux/releasenotes/x86_64/openSUSE/10.3/#15 And there's nothing more verifiable than the fact that cdrkit is used in all the major distros in place of cdrecord. Another informative thread: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/2009-January/006688.h... #6: Christopher Yeleighton (yecril71pl) (2011-02-07 19:51:02) (reply to #5) This caused both my brain and my machine to overheat :-) Unfortunately, the release notes (http://www.novell.com/linux/releasenotes/x86_64/openSUSE/10.3/#15.) do not say why cdrtools are dropped. The informative thread (https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/2009-January/006688.h...) does not name the party whose copyright laws are offended by cdrtools . The present source of cdrtools , 3.01, contains two components licensed under GPL: autoconf and mkisofs . autoconf is a build tool so it is irrelevant. mkisofs is indeed GPL but it is a separate program, therefore it can coëxist with CDDL software if it is distributed as a separate package. #7: Tim Edwards (tk83) (2011-02-07 20:18:05) (reply to #6) The first post in the Debian bug I posted lays out what the problem is quite clearly. "In cdrtools 2.01.01a03 license of several makefiles have been changed to a custom version of CDDL, which is a non-GPL- compatible license." Nothing to do with autoconf. Unless the cdrecord author has reversed those license changes none of the major Linux distros will pick up cdrecord again, that horse has been flogged to death many times #8: Christopher Yeleighton (yecril71pl) (2011-02-07 21:08:37) (reply to #7) CDDL, modified or not, is incompatible with GPL, at least if we believe the FSF (believe the FSF) (the reasons why it is deemed incompatible are not explained.) If this were reason to drop cdrecord , we would have to drop flash-player as well, wouldn’t we? + #9: Tim Edwards (tk83) (2011-02-07 21:29:04) (reply to #8) + No. The cdrecord licence is (at least in the opinion of most Linux + distros) not legally valid because it puts CDDL licensed files in a GPL + program. That is why they don't want to distribute it. + Flash, on the other hand, is a completely separate program licensed + under a legally valid license. The Flash license, even though it's not + open source, allows re-distribution - which is why you'll find it in + the non-oss ("non open source") repository. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/311186