On Saturday 17 January 2009, Joerg Schilling <joerg.schill...@fokus.fraunhofer.de> wrote about 'Re: k3b & brasero don't work, nerolinux does- works ar 2X': >Chris Bannister <mockingb...@earthlight.co.nz> wrote: >> http://lwn.net/Articles/198171/ > >Everything starting with the word "Unfortunately" in this article is > plain FUD.
Could please take it point by point? Here's my take: "Unfortunately Sun then developed the CDDL[1] and Jörg Schilling released parts of recent versions of cdrtools under this license." True. "The CDDL is incompatible with the GPL." The FSF and Sun have said as much, but IANAL. From what I understand, Jörg seems to believe this is not actually issue in the case. From what I understand, his opinion is based on his beliefe that no GPL code is linked to CDDL code in cdrtools. "The FSF itself says that this is the case as do people who helped draft the CDDL." True. "One current and one former Sun employee visited the annual Debian conference in Mexico in 2006." True. "Danese Cooper clearly stated there that the CDDL was intentionally modelled on the MPL in order to make it GPL- incompatible." True. "For everyone who wants to hear this first-hand, we have video from that talk available at [2]." True. "You can read the FSF position about the CDDL at [3]." True. "The thread behind [4] contains statements on the issue made by Debian people; for more context also see the other mails in that thread." True enough, though the value of message in that thread differs. I'll refrain from reviewing the individual statements in that thread, though I suggest other do if they want to hear more of Debian's side of the arguments. "In short - the CDDL has extra restrictions, which the GPL does not allow." True. "Jörg has a different opinion about this and has repeatedly stated that the CDDL is not incompatible, interpreting a facial expression in the above-mentioned video, calling us liars and generally appearing unwilling to consider our concerns (he never replied to the parts where we explained why it is incompatible)." As I understand it, it is largely not true. The post does not appear to provide any references to support these statements. I beleive they can be safely ignored. I would welcome any references confirming or refuting these statements. "As he has basically ignored what we have said, we have no choice but to fork." Not entirely true. Debian has two distinct choices to make: (A) (1) distribute cdrtools or (2) not and (B) (1) distribute cdrtools-compatible software not based on cdrtools, (2) distribute cdrtools-compatible software based on cdrtools, or (3) not distribute cdrtools-compatible software. Debian chose A2+B2, believing A1 carried undue legal risk to the Debian project, A2+B3 would be a disservice to Debian users, A2+B1 would be slower than A2+B2, and A2+B2 was possible based on the license of earlier versions of cdrtools. I agree with Debian's decision and the thought process behind it. Jörg believes A1 does not but Debian at legal risk, and that B1 and B2 actually violate the GPL and "German Copyright Law" because of the necessary symlinks required. "While the CDDL *may* be a free license, we never questioned if it is free or not, as it is not our place to decide this as the Debian cdrtools maintainers." Not entirely true. It is the responsibility of everyone contributing to the Debian project to ensure software distributed by Debian meets the DFSG or at least is distributable by Debian. If a developer is considering uploading a package, they are supposed to make sure it is in the right section based on its license and it is distributable by Debian. The ftp-masters share this role. Non-DD maintainers should also will this role "However, having been approved by OSI doesn't mean it's ok for any usage, as Jörg unfortunately seems to assume." I'm not sure if Jörg assumes that. However, it is very much true. Just because OSI approves a license does not mean that the license is DFSG-free. DSFG-freeness is the exclusive purview of the Debian project. "There are several OSI-approved licenses that are GPL-incompatible and CDDL is one of them." True. "That is and always was our point." I'll assume this is true. "For our fork we used the last GPL-licensed version of the program code and killed the incompatibly licensed build system." True. "It is now replaced by a cmake system, and the whole source we distribute should be free of other incompatibilities, as to the best of our current knowledge." True. "Anyone who wants to help with this fork, particularly developers of other distributions, is welcome to join our efforts." True "You can contact us on IRC, server irc.oftc.net, channel #debburn, or via mail at debburn-de...@lists.alioth.debian.org. Our svn repository is http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/debburn."; I believe the repository may have moved, but otherwise true. -- Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. ,= ,-_-. =. b...@iguanasuicide.net ((_/)o o(\_)) ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy `-'(. .)`-' http://iguanasuicide.net/ \_/ [1] http://www.opensource.org/licenses/cddl1.php [2] http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2006/debconf6/theora-small/2006-05-14/tower/OpenSolaris_Java_and_Debian-Simon_Phipps__Alvaro_Lopez_Ortega.ogg [3] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html [4] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/08/msg00552.html
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
