Re: [arch-general] An old, tiresome discussion: cdrtools vs cdrkit
Jan de Groot wrote:
It seems that GPL and CDDL have some conflicting paragraphs, so even if CDDL allows linking to GPL with this exception, GPL doesn't allow the other way around.
I am not sure where you have this idea from.... The CDDL allows to combine CDDL code with other code and the GPL permits to link any GPLv2 program against any independent library under any license. Note that the GPL is an asymmetric license that disallows code based on GPLd software but if a program _uses_ a library, the library definitely is not based on the program code that just uses the library code. The common understanding of the laywers in Germany and the USA on what's happening when a program links against a library is that this creates a so called "collective work" which is not a derived work. The GPL definitely allows such collective works. See page 114 ff. in: http://www.rosenlaw.com/Rosen_Ch06.pdf Lawrence Rosen is the legal advisor of the OpenSource Initiative opensource.org. Jörg -- EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
On 26/01/10 01:19, Joerg Schilling wrote:
Jan de Groot wrote:
It seems that GPL and CDDL have some conflicting paragraphs, so even if CDDL allows linking to GPL with this exception, GPL doesn't allow the other way around.
I am not sure where you have this idea from....
The CDDL allows to combine CDDL code with other code and the GPL permits to link any GPLv2 program against any independent library under any license.
Note that the GPL is an asymmetric license that disallows code based on GPLd software but if a program _uses_ a library, the library definitely is not based on the program code that just uses the library code.
The common understanding of the laywers in Germany and the USA on what's happening when a program links against a library is that this creates a so called "collective work" which is not a derived work. The GPL definitely allows such collective works.
See page 114 ff. in:
http://www.rosenlaw.com/Rosen_Ch06.pdf
Lawrence Rosen is the legal advisor of the OpenSource Initiative opensource.org.
The FSF interprets that quite differently. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses This is a free software license. It has a copyleft with a scope that's similar to the one in the Mozilla Public License, which makes it incompatible with the GNU GPL. This means a module covered by the GPL and a module covered by the CDDL cannot legally be linked together. We urge you not to use the CDDL for this reason. So the debate as it stands is: FSF says no Sun says yes Now, the FSF has an interest in the GPL as Sun does in the CDDL. So these answers are probably not completely unbiased. At least one answer is wrong... the obvious key is knowing which, and we really are not in a position to find out ourselves. So the only solution I can see is to cover out asses and just not distribute cdrtools. Allan
Allan McRae <allan@archlinux.org> wrote:
The common understanding of the laywers in Germany and the USA on what's happening when a program links against a library is that this creates a so called "collective work" which is not a derived work. The GPL definitely allows such collective works.
See page 114 ff. in:
http://www.rosenlaw.com/Rosen_Ch06.pdf
Lawrence Rosen is the legal advisor of the OpenSource Initiative opensource.org.
The FSF interprets that quite differently. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses
This is a free software license. It has a copyleft with a scope that's similar to the one in the Mozilla Public License, which makes it incompatible with the GNU GPL. This means a module covered by the GPL and a module covered by the CDDL cannot legally be linked together. We urge you not to use the CDDL for this reason.
So the debate as it stands is:
FSF says no
This is not true...... What the FSF says is unfortunately missleading as what the FSF says does _only_ apply if you would try to merge GPL code with other code in a _single_ "work". As you see, this does not apply to cdrtools. The libraries mkisofs links against are not just "modules" but own independent "works". In case you don't know: we did have a long discussion in the late 1980s about the usability of the GPL (when the GPL precursor appeared with the first GCC) and as a result, the GPL was intentionlly modified to allow a GPLd program to link against any independent library under any license. There is a problem with combining _any_ GPL incompatible license with GPL code into a single work. This is e.g. true for GPLv3, as the GPLv3 is incompatible to the GPL and for this reason, you cannot combine GPL code with GPLv3 code. If the FSF was unbiased, they needed to urge people not to use GPLv3, do they? Does the FSF list the GPLv3 as a GPL incompatible license? Just a hint: the FSF accepted a "collective work" created by Veritas by adding closed source libraries with GNU tar. Veritas was never sued for creating this collective work..... The FSF does not own any code in cdrtools and the FSF does not publish cdrtools, so it is obvious that the FSF is irrelevant for your discussion. Jörg -- EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
On 26/01/10 02:15, Joerg Schilling wrote:
The FSF does not own any code in cdrtools and the FSF does not publish cdrtools, so it is obvious that the FSF is irrelevant for your discussion.
Really? I thought the discussion was whether your code with its license is legally allowed to link to GPL code. Given the FSF is the authority on the GPL, I thought it was relevant to the discussion. But now you have said otherwise so I must be wrong... </sarcasm> You have a vested interest in the software and Sun has a vested interest in the CDDL. Neither of you are really unbiased in this issue so I will continue to down-weight your enthusiast opinions accordingly. Similarly, the FSF has an vested interest in the GPL, and their opinion should be down-weighted too. The multiplier I chose for all this down-weighting is zero. Unfortunately, on this issue, no-one I would consider roughly unbiased has looked into it. Thus, I am left with no opinions to listen to. I am left to conclude that my best course of action is to take what is the lowest risk and not distribute cdrtools. Unless someone can point me to a source of information whose opinion is worth listening to. Allan
Allan McRae <allan@archlinux.org> wrote:
Unfortunately, on this issue, no-one I would consider roughly unbiased has looked into it. Thus, I am left with no opinions to listen to. I
OK, if you are unbiased I encourage you to immediately stop distributing "cdrkit". Cdrkit is in conflict with the GPL and the Gopyright law and cannot be legally distributed in either source or binary. See: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/linux-dist.html The current situation is: - cdrkit is undistributable - several lawyers (including Sun legal and Eben Moglen) see no problems with the original software. Could you explain why you still like to prefer cdrkit instead of the original software? Jörg -- EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
I guess I'm new to an old discussion, so just to catch up: cdrtools: original package, active devel, possible licence probs cdr-kit: the fork, inactive devel, exists to be included in debian This seems to be a fairly straight write up of the circumstances that led to the fork. http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/linux-dist.html So *if* cdr-kit is as buggy and out of date as proposed by the cdrtools devs, then it really shouldn't be in extra. Coming to this discussion with the baggage of past arguements, I see the following outcomes: 1. Leave it alone, easiest but shipping the broken is bad 2. Move cdr-kit to AUR, next easiest but sub-optimal, no way to use pacman to get burning tools 3. Take the cdrtools devs at their word and dump cdr-kit. FWIW, I'm in favor of #3, and practically, the other bigger distros that have switched back to cdrtools are fatter targets for any legal action. Furthermore, who exactly would be doing the suing? If it's the GNU, then their goal would be to fix the licence problems, not collect money. If that happened, put it all in AUR and wash our hands. -- Kitty
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 11:49 AM, Kitty <secacat@gmail.com> wrote:
FWIW, I'm in favor of #3, and practically, the other bigger distros that have switched back to cdrtools are fatter targets for any legal action. Furthermore, who exactly would be doing the suing? If it's the GNU, then their goal would be to fix the licence problems, not collect money. If that happened, put it all in AUR and wash our hands.
I'm quite convinced by this argument myself. Who would be suing us? FSF wouldn't give us a hard time, and Herr Schilling certainly doesn't intend to do so. I think there's also no question that cdrtools is technically superior to cdrkit. There's practically no reason for even debating this.
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 13:40, Ray Kohler <ataraxia937@gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 11:49 AM, Kitty <secacat@gmail.com> wrote:
FWIW, I'm in favor of #3, and practically, the other bigger distros that have switched back to cdrtools are fatter targets for any legal action. Furthermore, who exactly would be doing the suing? If it's the GNU, then their goal would be to fix the licence problems, not collect money. If that happened, put it all in AUR and wash our hands.
I'm quite convinced by this argument myself. Who would be suing us? FSF wouldn't give us a hard time, and Herr Schilling certainly doesn't intend to do so.
I think there's also no question that cdrtools is technically superior to cdrkit. There's practically no reason for even debating this.
Couldn't we just have Jeorg give his official written permission to Arch to distribute the binaries and be done with it? He certainly seems to want us to...
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 4:40 PM, Ray Kohler <ataraxia937@gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 11:49 AM, Kitty <secacat@gmail.com> wrote:
FWIW, I'm in favor of #3, and practically, the other bigger distros that have switched back to cdrtools are fatter targets for any legal action. Furthermore, who exactly would be doing the suing? If it's the GNU, then their goal would be to fix the licence problems, not collect money. If that happened, put it all in AUR and wash our hands.
There's one thing that I don't understand: Cdrtools doesn't provide any library to be linked against. It is just a set of executables that can be called by scripts or graphical frontends, like k3b. So why is illegal to distribute a CDDL package that will be used by a GPL package in executable form? I mean, there's no linking happening, and, as I understand it, that's legal according to GPL. Am I missing something? -- A: Because it obfuscates the reading. Q: Why is top posting so bad? ------------------------------------------- Denis A. Altoe Falqueto -------------------------------------------
Kitty <secacat@gmail.com> wrote:
3. Take the cdrtools devs at their word and dump cdr-kit.
FWIW, I'm in favor of #3, and practically, the other bigger distros that have switched back to cdrtools are fatter targets for any legal action. Furthermore, who exactly would be doing the suing? If it's the GNU, then their goal would be to fix the licence problems, not collect money. If that happened, put it all in AUR and wash our hands.
You are very close to the important points: If you like to sue someone based on a work, you need to be an involved Copyright holder. The FSF cannot sue anybody for cdrtools because the FSF does not own any copyright on the sources. Debian cannot sue anybody for cdrtools because Debian does not own any copyright on the sources. Who else could be interested and have the needed rights? Jörg -- EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
Am Montag, 25. Januar 2010 17:15:35 schrieb Joerg Schilling:
The FSF does not own any code in cdrtools and the FSF does not publish cdrtools, so it is obvious that the FSF is irrelevant for your discussion.
To track down the problem to its root: What does it cost you to distribute your code dual licensed under CCDL and GPL? At some point it does not matter if you are right or not because it is simply too expensive for us to proof it. You said yourself that it took some time for SUN lawyers to conclude that GPL and CCDL might be compatible. But obviously it's not easy as we wouldn't have this discussion other vise. You could either continue to join endless discussion, ask more lawyers etc. or simply check how you could distribute cdrtools with two licenses, the CCDL and GPL. If you really want people to use your code and concentrate on development rather than licensing issues this is the simplest solution. Pierre -- Pierre Schmitz, https://users.archlinux.de/~pierre
Am 25.01.2010 17:15, schrieb Joerg Schilling:
[ legal bla ]
It would be nice if you updated your homepage (which would need a new look too, it reminds me of the old days when using the internet was annoying due to those ugly blinking websites). Quote from http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/linux-dist.html#legal: "There is no license problem in the original cdrtools Sun lawyers made a full legal review on the cdrtools package between August and November 2008 and did not find any license problem. The claims from Eduard Bloch obviously conflict with the GPL license text. See the GPL legal review from Lawrence Rosen an independent lawyer who worked for the OpenSource initiative. Read more about the background in a few days." I would love to read more about this background. Unfortunately the "in a few days" has been there for at least a year. However, the real question here is: Even if there is a license problem, will the original mkisofs copyright holders sue anyone over it? I pretty much doubt that. I don't pretend to understand any of this license crap anyway - it is supposed to be free software, but it is making itself un-free due to these braindead license discussions. In any case, I would love to see cdrtools in Arch again, if we can just get a definite independent answer on this whole mess (and I agree with Allan here, you are biased on this matter).
Thomas Bächler <thomas@archlinux.org> wrote:
It would be nice if you updated your homepage (which would need a new look too, it reminds me of the old days when using the internet was annoying due to those ugly blinking websites). Quote from http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/linux-dist.html#legal:
"There is no license problem in the original cdrtools Sun lawyers made a full legal review on the cdrtools package between August and November 2008 and did not find any license problem.
The claims from Eduard Bloch obviously conflict with the GPL license text. See the GPL legal review from Lawrence Rosen an independent lawyer who worked for the OpenSource initiative.
Read more about the background in a few days."
I would love to read more about this background. Unfortunately the "in a few days" has been there for at least a year.
Well, the background is that Eben Moglen confirmed that there is no problem with the original code but then did not give permission to publish his review results.
However, the real question here is: Even if there is a license problem, will the original mkisofs copyright holders sue anyone over it? I pretty much doubt that.
The original author (Eric Youngdale) started mkisofs in October 1993. The last version he did make himself was published in December 1996, at this time, the code was ~ 7000 lines of code. In the time between early 1997 and Autumn 1999, most of the maintenance work was done by me and a recent mkisofs from me was already part of the cdrtools source tree. In Autumn 1999, Eric did finally tell me that he has no longer time and interest in maintaining mkisofs and handed all development material over to me. The current mkisofs source is ~ 29000 lines of code.
I don't pretend to understand any of this license crap anyway - it is supposed to be free software, but it is making itself un-free due to these braindead license discussions.
I did not start that braindead discussion, I am also just a victim. Jörg -- EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 2:13 PM, Joerg Schilling <Joerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de> wrote:
Thomas Bächler <thomas@archlinux.org> wrote:
It would be nice if you updated your homepage (which would need a new look too, it reminds me of the old days when using the internet was annoying due to those ugly blinking websites). Quote from http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/linux-dist.html#legal:
"There is no license problem in the original cdrtools Sun lawyers made a full legal review on the cdrtools package between August and November 2008 and did not find any license problem.
The claims from Eduard Bloch obviously conflict with the GPL license text. See the GPL legal review from Lawrence Rosen an independent lawyer who worked for the OpenSource initiative.
Read more about the background in a few days."
I would love to read more about this background. Unfortunately the "in a few days" has been there for at least a year.
Well, the background is that Eben Moglen confirmed that there is no problem with the original code but then did not give permission to publish his review results.
This may be a huge stumbling block for all involved. We've all dealt with bureaucracy before and usually when something is not viewable by the public like this, while we're all told to "take our word for it", warning signs are raised. "Just trust us" will never work coming from some faceless corporate entity. Getting this actual legal review made public would be a huge step not only in trust, but also in closing this issue once and for all. Might I ask WHY this review isn't made public?
Aaron Griffin <aaronmgriffin@gmail.com> wrote:
Getting this actual legal review made public would be a huge step not only in trust, but also in closing this issue once and for all.
Might I ask WHY this review isn't made public?
If people did require the hostile downstream packager from Debian to prove his claims when he started the campaign against cdrtools, the whole thing did never start. The whole campain is based on intimations on "possible problems" that never have been proved. I cannot speak for decisions made by Eben Moglen, but he is no longer a friend of RMS since RMS ignored Moglens proposals for a more liberal GPLv3 and btw: Moglen is known for a noticable difference between what he says in public and what he says in privacy. People like me who are promoting a better collaboration between different OSS camps are unfortunately a target for various attacks these days. Do you really like me to sue people to get a "final" verdict from a judge? Would such a verdict change things? In other mails I explained the legal and the technical situation. The change to CDDL happened 4 years ago and nobody did sue me and nobody did even told me that he might sue me. What is the probability that anyone will be sued for distributing cdrtools? On the other side, I did tell Mr. Bloch many times that he might be sued because his changes to the fork make the fork be in conflict with GPL and Copyright law. Jörg -- EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 4:10 PM, Joerg Schilling <Joerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de> wrote:
Aaron Griffin <aaronmgriffin@gmail.com> wrote:
Getting this actual legal review made public would be a huge step not only in trust, but also in closing this issue once and for all.
Might I ask WHY this review isn't made public?
If people did require the hostile downstream packager from Debian to prove his claims when he started the campaign against cdrtools, the whole thing did never start.
I'm sorry, but I wish not to be trolled. This isn't <someone> vs you in a deathmatch of internet arguing capabilities, it's a question. Please don't sidestep it. Can we please see the results of the legal review?
On 01/25/2010 12:50 PM, Allan McRae wrote:
On 26/01/10 01:19, Joerg Schilling wrote:
Jan de Groot wrote:
It seems that GPL and CDDL have some conflicting paragraphs, so even if CDDL allows linking to GPL with this exception, GPL doesn't allow the other way around.
I am not sure where you have this idea from....
The CDDL allows to combine CDDL code with other code and the GPL permits to link any GPLv2 program against any independent library under any license.
Note that the GPL is an asymmetric license that disallows code based on GPLd software but if a program _uses_ a library, the library definitely is not based on the program code that just uses the library code.
The common understanding of the laywers in Germany and the USA on what's happening when a program links against a library is that this creates a so called "collective work" which is not a derived work. The GPL definitely allows such collective works.
See page 114 ff. in:
http://www.rosenlaw.com/Rosen_Ch06.pdf
Lawrence Rosen is the legal advisor of the OpenSource Initiative opensource.org.
The FSF interprets that quite differently. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses
This is a free software license. It has a copyleft with a scope that's similar to the one in the Mozilla Public License, which makes it incompatible with the GNU GPL. This means a module covered by the GPL and a module covered by the CDDL cannot legally be linked together. We urge you not to use the CDDL for this reason.
So the debate as it stands is:
FSF says no Sun says yes
Now, the FSF has an interest in the GPL as Sun does in the CDDL. So these answers are probably not completely unbiased. At least one answer is wrong... the obvious key is knowing which, and we really are not in a position to find out ourselves.
So the only solution I can see is to cover out asses and just not distribute cdrtools.
Allan
Hello, My question is: this is relevant in Arch Linux? I guess that in general there are no strong rules about license issues under Arch Linux. I remember well, that some time ago, I asked some things about some packages readline and BSD license. One comment, if I remember correctly, is that strictly speaking there would be problems between OpenSSL and software that makes use of it. Finally the conclusion was something like: "Why discuss this? Everything is free software!". So: Why is the opposition? Why comply with details in this particular case and in all other not? All is free software at all! PS: If there's one thing I love about Arch Linux is that it does not care about this great parody/paradox about licensing. Good day \forall -- Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi ( djgera ) http://www.djgera.com.ar KeyID: 0x1B8C330D Key fingerprint = 0CAA D5D4 CD85 4434 A219 76ED 39AB 221B 1B8C 330D
On 01/25/2010 02:46 PM, Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi wrote:
Hello,
My question is: this is relevant in Arch Linux? I guess that in general there are no strong rules about license issues under Arch Linux.
I remember well, that some time ago, I asked some things about some packages readline (GPL) and BSD license. One comment, if I remember correctly, is that strictly speaking there would be problems between OpenSSL and software that makes use of it. Finally the conclusion was something like: "Why discuss this? Everything is free software!".
So: Why is the opposition? Why comply with details in this particular case and in all other not? All is free software at all!
PS: If there's one thing I love about Arch Linux is that it does not care about this great parody/paradox about licensing.
Good day \forall
The discussion continued "in other branches" and I quote my message that was ignored. I'd like to read the answers to these questions if they were so kind. So I think that discussions about "compatibility" of licenses are meaningless. Leaving aside what really matters is functionality. Thank you. -- Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi ( djgera ) http://www.djgera.com.ar KeyID: 0x1B8C330D Key fingerprint = 0CAA D5D4 CD85 4434 A219 76ED 39AB 221B 1B8C 330D
participants (10)
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Aaron Griffin
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Allan McRae
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Daenyth Blank
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Denis A. Altoé Falqueto
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Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi
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Joerg.Schilling＠fokus.fraunhofer.de
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Kitty
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Pierre Schmitz
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Ray Kohler
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Thomas Bächler