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

Allan McRae allan at archlinux.org
Wed Jan 27 09:55:08 EST 2010


On 28/01/10 00:31, Joerg Schilling wrote:
> The GPL claims to be a valid OSS license.
>
> In order to become a valid OSS license, a license must not only follow the
> weak rules from the FSF but also follow the more stringent rules from the
> OpenSource initiative:
>
> http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php
>
> The OSI did mark the GPL as a non-free license some years ago because some
> people from the FSF did write strange claims about the GPL. As a reaction, the
> FSF replied that the GPL has to be interpreted in a way that makes it compliant
> to: http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php
>
> We for this reason may safely asume that the GPL of course allows to publish
> two independent OSS projects in a single archive. See OSS definition
> paragraph 9.

This is where your argument fails and it has been the stumbling block in 
all previous debates on this issue.

The GPL may allow separate projects to be distributed in the one 
tarball, but it considers scripts necessary to build a project part of 
the same project.  This is the issue.

You claim they are separate projects; others claim the GPL does not 
allow that.  Your evidence that this is allowable is a mysterious 
private email that apparently says all is OK...

That is almost insurmountable.  If a lawyer provided a statement saying 
that it was legal and was prepared provide a defense in case of any 
issues, then we may be able to talk about this again.

Until that point, nothing productive can be achieved discussing this 
issue, so I will not continue reading this thread.

Allan


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