[arch-general] An old, tiresome discussion: cdrtools vs cdrkit

[Loui Chang]

On Mon 25 Jan 2010 16:28 +0100, Joerg Schilling wrote:
> Heiko Baums wrote:
> 
> >I don't know anything about the technical differences between cdrkit
> >and cdrtools but http://cdrkit.org says:
> >News
> >2009/10/11
> >Cdrkit 1.1.10 has been released.
> 
> >So the last stable release was not a year but only three months ago.
> >This looks like an active development for me.
> 
> Please have a closer look on _what_ was changed in this "release".
> This have been mainly single char typo corrections but the > 100 well
> known bugs that exist as long as the fork exists have never been
> fixed. 
> 
> On the original software, you see more changes (enhancements and
> fixes) in a lazy week than the "cdrkit project" did get since May 6th
> 2007 in total.
> 
> In the fork, problems are ignored. In the original software, problems
> are fixed very soon; typically within hours. This is why there are no
> known problems in the original software.
> 
> The fork did not publish a single version that was known to be without
> bugs at the time of publishing. The original cdrtools project did
> publish more than 70 releases in the same time and more than 60 of
> them did have not a single bug when they have been published.

Maintainers of packages in Arch Linux may decide to package any software
whether it's a fork of an existing package or not.

If there are outstanding licensing or legal issues they may decide to
avoid that particular software.

The issue isn't really about bugs vs. no bugs. So let's stay on topic.
It's more about licenses and the legal ramifications that may come with
improper usage. I think Arch followed Debian because they seem to know a
lot more than we do. On the other hand, maybe we should be using debs
rather than .pkg.tar.gz if that's the case. (hah)

It is important to respect the caution that the devs are taking.
Personally, if it was my decision, I'd encourage any Arch dev or
TU who is interested in maintaining cdrtools to go ahead with it. I
don't have the same faith in Debian that a lot of others might.

Anyways, this package could easily be made available in an unofficial
repository until everyone is comfortable with the licensing. Don't rely
on the devs to do everything for you.