[opensuse-factory] Why don't we change to cdrtools ?

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Luis Medinas

2 Jul 2009 2 Jul '09

14:52

On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Vladimir Nadvornik wrote:

...

On čt 2. července 2009, Luis Medinas wrote:

...
Hi

Back in the day that all major distros switched to cdrkit (fork from cdrtools) i was one of the maintainers (at the time maintainer on Gentoo Linux) that made a decision to ship cdrkit by default and start porting applications to cdrkit (brasero and ncb). This decision was mainly to follow every distros at the time and get all maintainers together since cdrtools switched license and debian maintainers questioned this problem[1]. Now days cdrkit development is almost dead[2] and this piece of software is full of bugs that noone wants to fix. As a solution i propose to review cdrtools license (Sun says it's ok) and replace cdrkit by cdrtools on O:F. Joerg (cdrtools author and maintainer) seems much more friendly now days and very responsive to the bugs. We also have recent packages available on home:/hennichodernich/

Can we consider this ?

AFAIK cdrtools still have some problems that were solved in cdrkit: - acessing the device via /dev/sg vs. /dev/sr https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=226019

- burning without root or suid

and AFAIK there is no chance to have this fixed in upstream and having separate suse patches was against Joerg's GPL.

I have cdrtools installed to test with brasero and i have no problems with this.

...

But it should be possible to have cdrtools in Factory, in parallel to cdrkit. The license issues are IMHO solvable.

Yeah this would be awesome at least we can choose between the maintained and unmaintained.

...

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Also i would like to see libburn on O:F but since it's on X11:XFCE with the opening of Factory this package will be merged there am i right ?

1- http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/linux-dist.html 2- http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/debburn-changes/

BTW, I am looking for new maintainer for the burning sw (cdrkit, dvd+rw-tools, cdrdao, ...) because I am changing the possition in Novell and I probably won't have time to work on this.

I can give some help on this but i would like to have cdrtools on O:F because it fixes lot's of bugs on cdrkit and has new modern features that newer burners support. Luis -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Show replies by date

Vladimir Nadvornik

2 Jul 2 Jul

15:57

On čt 2. července 2009, Luis Medinas wrote:

...

On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Vladimir Nadvornik wrote:

...
On čt 2. července 2009, Luis Medinas wrote:

...
Hi

Back in the day that all major distros switched to cdrkit (fork from cdrtools) i was one of the maintainers (at the time maintainer on Gentoo Linux) that made a decision to ship cdrkit by default and start porting applications to cdrkit (brasero and ncb). This decision was mainly to follow every distros at the time and get all maintainers together since cdrtools switched license and debian maintainers questioned this problem[1]. Now days cdrkit development is almost dead[2] and this piece of software is full of bugs that noone wants to fix. As a solution i propose to review cdrtools license (Sun says it's ok) and replace cdrkit by cdrtools on O:F. Joerg (cdrtools author and maintainer) seems much more friendly now days and very responsive to the bugs. We also have recent packages available on home:/hennichodernich/

Can we consider this ?

AFAIK cdrtools still have some problems that were solved in cdrkit: - acessing the device via /dev/sg vs. /dev/sr https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=226019

- burning without root or suid

and AFAIK there is no chance to have this fixed in upstream and having separate suse patches was against Joerg's GPL.

I have cdrtools installed to test with brasero and i have no problems with this.

I have just verified that bug 226019 is still a problem. With cdrecord from home:/hennichodernich/ on 11.1 I am not able to burn a cd, unless I kill hald-addon-storage. I could reproduce it with all LG devices that I tested. This particular device was 'DVDRAM GSA-U10N '. Also, cdrecord from that package is installed with suid root. I am quite sure that our security team won't like it. Vladimir -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Luis Medinas

17:02

2009/7/2 Vladimir Nadvornik :

...

I have just verified that bug 226019 is still a problem. With cdrecord from home:/hennichodernich/ on 11.1 I am not able to burn a cd, unless I kill hald-addon-storage. I could reproduce it with all LG devices that I tested. This particular device was 'DVDRAM GSA-U10N '.

Also, cdrecord from that package is installed with suid root. I am quite sure that our security team won't like it.

Is there a way we can fix this without patching cdrtools ? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Marcus Meissner

17:41

On Thu, Jul 02, 2009 at 06:02:23PM +0100, Luis Medinas wrote:

...

2009/7/2 Vladimir Nadvornik :

...
I have just verified that bug 226019 is still a problem. With cdrecord from home:/hennichodernich/ on 11.1 I am not able to burn a cd, unless I kill hald-addon-storage. I could reproduce it with all LG devices that I tested. This particular device was 'DVDRAM GSA-U10N '.

Also, cdrecord from that package is installed with suid root. I am quite sure that our security team won't like it.

Is there a way we can fix this without patching cdrtools ?

Free software wants to be patched. Sorry. Ciao, Marcus -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Luis Medinas

17:57

On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 6:41 PM, Marcus Meissner wrote:

...

On Thu, Jul 02, 2009 at 06:02:23PM +0100, Luis Medinas wrote:

...
2009/7/2 Vladimir Nadvornik :

...
I have just verified that bug 226019 is still a problem. With cdrecord from home:/hennichodernich/ on 11.1 I am not able to burn a cd, unless I kill hald-addon-storage. I could reproduce it with all LG devices that I tested. This particular device was 'DVDRAM GSA-U10N '.

Also, cdrecord from that package is installed with suid root. I am quite sure that our security team won't like it.

Is there a way we can fix this without patching cdrtools ?

Free software wants to be patched. Sorry.

The problem isn't patching at all but it's about maintaining patches that won't be accepted upstream. Luis -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Cristian Morales Vega

18:12

2009/7/2 Luis Medinas :

...

On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 6:41 PM, Marcus Meissner wrote:

...
On Thu, Jul 02, 2009 at 06:02:23PM +0100, Luis Medinas wrote:

...
2009/7/2 Vladimir Nadvornik :

...
I have just verified that bug 226019 is still a problem. With cdrecord from home:/hennichodernich/ on 11.1 I am not able to burn a cd, unless I kill hald-addon-storage. I could reproduce it with all LG devices that I tested. This particular device was 'DVDRAM GSA-U10N '.

Also, cdrecord from that package is installed with suid root. I am quite sure that our security team won't like it.

Is there a way we can fix this without patching cdrtools ?

Free software wants to be patched. Sorry.

The problem isn't patching at all but it's about maintaining patches that won't be accepted upstream.

Could you summarize the situation for the ones that just arrived? I have been reading the discussion from the fork time and the situation isn't exactly clear to me. - The problem has something to do with cdrtools being relicensed, in part, as CDDL. - At first only the build system was CDDL, correct? We could have "just" changed the build system. Then "real" code was licensed also as CDDL, so changing the build system isn't an option anymore. - The CDDL is incompatible with the GPL... but cdrtools mixes them???? - The Wikipedia says Ubuntu asked Eben Moglen and he said Ubuntu could not distribute cdrtools. ...so, can openSUSE distribute cdrtools with patches? Why? can openSUSE distribute cdrtools without patches? Why? Are openSUSE specific patches perhaps acceptable in the GPL code but no in the CDDL code? If openSUSE can distribute cdrtools without patches but no with them... exactly what is the problem for which upstream doesn't wants to accept patches? What are the problems with cdrkit? Latest release is from 2008/10/26 and the latest change in SVN is from 49 days ago. Not exactly the most active project but neither seems dead. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Sid Boyce

21:00

Cristian Morales Vega wrote:

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...
The problem isn't patching at all but it's about maintaining patches that won't be accepted upstream.

An immediated problem.

...

Could you summarize the situation for the ones that just arrived? I have been reading the discussion from the fork time and the situation isn't exactly clear to me. - The problem has something to do with cdrtools being relicensed, in part, as CDDL. - At first only the build system was CDDL, correct? We could have "just" changed the build system. Then "real" code was licensed also as CDDL, so changing the build system isn't an option anymore. - The CDDL is incompatible with the GPL... but cdrtools mixes them???? - The Wikipedia says Ubuntu asked Eben Moglen and he said Ubuntu could not distribute cdrtools.

The problem started way long before CDDL and openSolaris were dreamt of. You would have to go way back in the kernel mailing list archives, but a very short summary is --- Linux is out of step with other OS's, so Linux has to change to accomodate cdrtools, threats by Joerg to no longer support Linux. It got quite heated and went on a long time with one man telling the kernel developers they have to adapt the kernel to suit his bit of software. Like such arguments before and since, an alternative was built and all argument ceased forthwith. If cdrkit is unmaintained, there is nothing stopping anyone willing and able from taking it up, better than opening in a can of worms to see if they are still alive and dangerous. Anyone remember how "indispensible" BitKeeper was said to be to kernel development, until Linus knocked up "git" as a quick alternative and since then the number of repositories using git have been increasing steadily.

...

...so, can openSUSE distribute cdrtools with patches? Why? can openSUSE distribute cdrtools without patches? Why? Are openSUSE specific patches perhaps acceptable in the GPL code but no in the CDDL code? If openSUSE can distribute cdrtools without patches but no with them... exactly what is the problem for which upstream doesn't wants to accept patches? Linux has to do things his way, he doesn't have to accommodate Linux. Joerg writes cdrtools and distributes it, it's "his" personal project and his alone.

...

What are the problems with cdrkit? Latest release is from 2008/10/26 and the latest change in SVN is from 49 days ago. Not exactly the most active project but neither seems dead.

If we assume that Joerg isn't the font of all knowledge in this area, cdrkit is more accessible and manageable. Regards Sid. -- Sid Boyce ... Hamradio License G3VBV, Licensed Private Pilot Emeritus IBM/Amdahl Mainframes and Sun/Fujitsu Servers Tech Support Specialist, Cricket Coach Microsoft Windows Free Zone - Linux used for all Computing Tasks -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Vladimir Nadvornik

3 Jul 3 Jul

09:14

On čt 2. července 2009, Cristian Morales Vega wrote:

...

2009/7/2 Luis Medinas :

...
On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 6:41 PM, Marcus Meissner wrote:

...
On Thu, Jul 02, 2009 at 06:02:23PM +0100, Luis Medinas wrote:

...
2009/7/2 Vladimir Nadvornik :

...
I have just verified that bug 226019 is still a problem. With cdrecord from home:/hennichodernich/ on 11.1 I am not able to burn a cd, unless I kill hald-addon-storage. I could reproduce it with all LG devices that I tested. This particular device was 'DVDRAM GSA-U10N '.

Also, cdrecord from that package is installed with suid root. I am quite sure that our security team won't like it.

Is there a way we can fix this without patching cdrtools ?

Free software wants to be patched. Sorry.

The problem isn't patching at all but it's about maintaining patches that won't be accepted upstream.

Could you summarize the situation for the ones that just arrived? I have been reading the discussion from the fork time and the situation isn't exactly clear to me. - The problem has something to do with cdrtools being relicensed, in part, as CDDL. - At first only the build system was CDDL, correct? We could have "just" changed the build system. Then "real" code was licensed also as CDDL, so changing the build system isn't an option anymore. - The CDDL is incompatible with the GPL... but cdrtools mixes them???? - The Wikipedia says Ubuntu asked Eben Moglen and he said Ubuntu could not distribute cdrtools.

cdrtools contains code that was written by Joerg: cdrecord, low-level scsi library (libscg), build system (smake). This code is now under CDDL. It contains also code that stays under GPL, because Joerg does not have the copyright - mkisofs. Mkisofs is linked with libscg - this is probably OK, and built with smake - this is not OK according to Debian. Joerg wrote, that it is OK according to Sun lawyers.

...

...so, can openSUSE distribute cdrtools with patches? Why? can openSUSE distribute cdrtools without patches? Why? Are openSUSE specific patches perhaps acceptable in the GPL code but no in the CDDL code?

Joerg seems to think that every patch, that is not approved by him, has negative effect on his reputation. GPL preamble says that it aims to protect original author's reputation. Thus the patches are illegal. I don't know what arguments he has for the CDDL code. I have never tried to patch this.

...

If openSUSE can distribute cdrtools without patches but no with them... exactly what is the problem for which upstream doesn't wants to accept patches?

As Sid Boyce wrote, Joerg disagrees on the way Linux handles scsi devices. Every problem is a bug in Linux, according to him.

...

What are the problems with cdrkit? Latest release is from 2008/10/26 and the latest change in SVN is from 49 days ago. Not exactly the most active project but neither seems dead.

Measured by new features, cdrtools is developed at least 50x faster. I guess Joerg works full time on it since the fork. Vladimir -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Sid Boyce

19:49

Vladimir Nadvornik wrote:
> On čt 2. července 2009, Cristian Morales Vega wrote:
>> 2009/7/2 Luis Medinas:
>>> On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 6:41 PM, Marcus Meissner  wrote:
>>>> On Thu, Jul 02, 2009 at 06:02:23PM +0100, Luis Medinas wrote:
>>>>> 2009/7/2 Vladimir Nadvornik:
>>>>>> I have just verified that bug 226019 is still a problem. With
>>>>>> cdrecord from home:/hennichodernich/ on 11.1 I am not able to burn a
>>>>>> cd, unless I kill hald-addon-storage. I could reproduce it with all
>>>>>> LG devices that I tested. This particular device was 'DVDRAM GSA-U10N
>>>>>> '.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Also, cdrecord from that package is installed with suid root. I am
>>>>>> quite sure that our security team won't like it.
>>>>> Is there a way we can fix this without patching cdrtools ?
>>>> Free software wants to be patched. Sorry.
>>> The problem isn't patching at all but it's about maintaining patches
>>> that won't be accepted upstream.
>> Could you summarize the situation for the ones that just arrived? I
>> have been reading the discussion from the fork time and the situation
>> isn't exactly clear to me.
>> - The problem has something to do with cdrtools being relicensed, in
>> part, as CDDL.
>> - At first only the build system was CDDL, correct? We could have
>> "just" changed the build system. Then "real" code was licensed also as
>> CDDL, so changing the build system isn't an option anymore.
>> - The CDDL is incompatible with the GPL... but cdrtools mixes them????
>> - The Wikipedia says Ubuntu asked Eben Moglen and he said Ubuntu could
>> not distribute cdrtools.
>
> cdrtools contains code that was written by Joerg: cdrecord, low-level scsi
> library (libscg), build system (smake). This code is now under CDDL.
> It contains also code that stays under GPL, because Joerg does not have the
> copyright - mkisofs. Mkisofs is linked with libscg - this is probably OK,
> and built with smake - this is not OK according to Debian. Joerg wrote, that
> it is OK according to Sun lawyers.
>
>> ...so, can openSUSE distribute cdrtools with patches? Why? can
>> openSUSE distribute cdrtools without patches? Why?
>> Are openSUSE specific patches perhaps acceptable in the GPL code but
>> no in the CDDL code?
>
> Joerg seems to think that every patch, that is not approved by him, has
> negative effect on his reputation. GPL preamble says that it aims to
> protect original author's reputation. Thus the patches are illegal.
>
> I don't know what arguments he has for the CDDL code. I have never tried to
> patch this.
>
>> If openSUSE can distribute cdrtools without patches but no with
>> them... exactly what is the problem for which upstream doesn't wants
>> to accept patches?
>
> As Sid Boyce wrote, Joerg disagrees on the way Linux handles scsi devices.
> Every problem is a bug in Linux, according to him.
>
>> What are the problems with cdrkit? Latest release is from 2008/10/26
>> and the latest change in SVN is from 49 days ago. Not exactly the most
>> active project but neither seems dead.
>
> Measured by new features, cdrtools is developed at least 50x faster. I guess
> Joerg works full time on it since the fork.
>
>
> Vladimir

He's developing his own branch of openSolaris called SchilliX and it 
seems he's equally dismissive there of anything that doesn't follow his 
lead.
Regards
Sid.
-- 
Sid Boyce ... Hamradio License G3VBV, Licensed Private Pilot
Emeritus IBM/Amdahl Mainframes and Sun/Fujitsu Servers Tech Support
Specialist, Cricket Coach
Microsoft Windows Free Zone - Linux used for all Computing Tasks

-- 
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org
For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

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Cristian Morales Vega
Luis Medinas
Marcus Meissner
Sid Boyce
Vladimir Nadvornik