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

[Lukáš Jirkovský]

This is my probably my very last reply to this thread. From last I
know that discussing with Joerg is pointless. Although I'm not a
lawyer I think I know GPL quite well.

First, I took a look at cdrkit sources to test the claim they are against GPL.
--------------------------------------------
GPL section 2. a) is violated.
I can't decide about 2. c) because I used cdrkit for about a week
several years ago.

Compared to the claims from Joerg's website:
I agree about 2. a), I can't decide about 2. c).
3 is IMO wrong. Sources are here and are compilable. Unless you are
taking it to extreme and wants to distribute it with all dependencies
like libc (which almost nobody does). For that case there is some
exception for system libraries like libc is (if there wasn't such
exception it would actually disallow GPL software to exist on Windows
or commercial Unix).

About the copyright act. This is meaningless stuff which has nothing
to do with GPL. What I mean is that if GPL and copyright act are
against each other the copyright act has precedence and makes the
license invalid (or some parts) in that country. I remember that here,
in Czech Republic, the GPL was not applicable because copyright act
didn't allow existence of licenses which would tune some of the
rights. Did it mean that all over the world the GPL was null?

Ad Preamble: I guess that cdrkit doesn't affect original author
reputation nearly as much as his hostility and being trollish.

Now let's take a look at cdrtools sources.
-----------------------------------------------------
mkisofs – from GPL side it is OK (you can link GPL with non GPL
libraries, but adding exception for this linking it advised).
>From CDDL side I'm not so sure.
In 3.1 is said:
"Any Covered Software that You distribute or otherwise make available
in Executable form must also be made available in Source Code form and
that Source Code form must be distributed only under the terms of this
License."

This looks like violation because mkisofs links sources that are under
CDDL. But later there is point 3.6. I think it doesn't apply here (if
I understand it right it allows you to eg. distribute binary which is
under CDDL and binary which is under GPL but NOT link GPL code into
CDDL). I wonder why everyone is talking about violating GPL when it
looks more like violating CDDL ;-)

libhfs – it's not a problem because it's used only within mkisofs


My conclusion:
-------------------
None of the tools is without problems so it's a matter of preference
which one you select. I'd select cdrtools because they are far more
superior than that useless cdrkit crap.

>From my point of view the best solution would be to relicense GPL code
to CDDL. If original author doesn't allow it then rewrite the affected
code (Joerg wrote somewhere that it's only around 7000 lines of code
so it should be that problematic).

regards,
Lukas "stativ" Jirkovsky