[arch-general] Burning From Command Line

[C Anthony Risinger]

On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 2:27 PM, Xavier Chantry
<chantry.xavier at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 8:32 PM, C Anthony Risinger <anthony at extof.me> wrote:
>>
>> at the possibility of playing devils advocate, i don't see anything
>> outrageous by Jeorg's claims... even after reading the full 40+
>> messages twice and the "yay" thread started afterwards.
>>
>
> Sorry to inform you that you did not read enough.

right on.

>
>> seriously, nobody is going to sue us for using the cdrtools package...
>> who? the guy that more or less owns it and is trying to get us to use
>> it?  doubtful.
>>
>> this seems like a bunch of political/personal nonsense, with a fair
>> amount of personal jabs and condescending attitudes toward Jeorg.
>> mind, i am entering this conflict without prior knowledge or bias.  i
>> did not even know there was a difference between wodim and
>> cdrtools/cdrecord... as Jeorg pointed out this is a _problem_.  his
>> software's reputation is most assuredly suffering from this
>> misinformation.
>>
>
> If you think I had any bias towards Joerg before reading this mailing
> list, well, you are wrong.
> Any judgments I might have is based on what he posted here.
> I don't see why other people should be biased either, Arch ML was
> spammed well enough on this topic that any reader can make his own
> opinion.

if you can't recognize the poor attitudes, them i'm afraid sir that it
is yourself who has not read enough.  i'm not going to cite anyone
specifically (and i wasn't referencing you in particular), but some of
the responses by even devs/forum admins are rather pointless and do
little more than provide more energy for further banter, on _both_
sides.  additionally, i would hardly classify the defense of one's
position as "spam".

>> if Arch was truly worries about legal issues (which seems to be a
>> complete moot point from my experience here), surely this package:
>>
>> http://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/i686/libdvdcss/
>>
>> would not even be REMOTELY close to an OFFICIAL repo!  am i right?  i
>> don't know ANY other distro that includes it.
>>
>> in the spirit of open licenses, mildly incompatible or not, include
>> the best tool for the job = cdrtools.
>>
>
> It's not the only issue. What we need is a Arch developer that is :
> 1) willing to package cdrtools despite the license doubts
> 2) willing to work with Joerg as upstream (see
> http://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-general/2010-May/013557.html)

sorry but that link is a prime example of said pointlessness:

"My impression of you is that you are very, very annoying and irritating."

gee, thanks. i see showers of rainbows and lollipops in the near future.

> That possibility was never completely excluded.
> But by endlessly trolling on our Mailing List and not showing much
> co-operation, Joerg is making more enemies than friends among Arch
> community and developers.
> IMO he would do himself a big favor by staying quiet.

perhaps.  but dealing with a conflict like this for nearly a decade is
bound to make any weary, disgruntled, and probably somewhat bitter
that it happened at all.  you do not know what the experience was like
or how deep the story runs any more than i do.  constantly telling the
guy that does know how he should "stay quiet" and accept it, well i'd
probably tell you exactly where to stick it if i were him :-)

> Since his software is technically superior, and is not completely
> unknown, people should recognize that and start using it by
> themselves. If a Arch user reports recording troubles with wodim, it's
> likely that another Arch user will recommend him to try out cdrecord,
> which is documented in Arch wiki and available in AUR. The good
> reputation of the software is built by the community, not the words of
> wisdom of the software's author.

for sure; let's package them both up.  dude's probably an alright guy
that is just passionate about his creation and his position.  hell,
make me a dev right now and i package the damn thing today.

>> on a final note, Jeorg, it would be extremely beneficial if you could
>> cite a hard resource regarding the legalities involved here, as you
>> seem to have a resource. or maybe just dual license cdrtools (why
>> not?).  why was the license changed to CDDL exclusive anyways?  i've
>> been in lengthy license discussion over on Phoronix, and i must admit,
>> the more i get into software as a living [6+ yrs now], the less i like
>> the GPLv* (notice nobody moves TO the GPL, they only move AWAY...
>> this, CouchDB [apache], etc... GPL is too purist IMO)
>>
>
> 20 people asked this before you on this very same mailing list. Why do
> you think you are so special that he would listen to you ?

maybe because i'm not an asshat about it in the process.  and because
i'm 40% special, and 60% that righteous mineral dolomite baby!  people
are more responsive when they don't feel threatened; that goes for
anyone.

> And if you had read this :
> http://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-general/2010-February/010989.html
> You would know there is not even a need for a dual license or a
> license change, just a simple clause :
> <<<
>  After speaking to Jörg we began our review of the complete source of
>  cdrtools, and soon verified that GPL compliance on mkisofs was broken.
>  We told Jörg that as far as we could see he was the only copyright
>  holder on the CDDL'd libraries, which he confirmed.  In that case, I
>  pointed out, he could give all the permission necessary to solve the
>  problem, without any license changes: he simply needed to give
>  permission as the relevant copyright holder on the CDDL's libraries
>  for combination with mkisofs and distribution of the binary and source
>  under the terms of GPL, without any additional restrictions.  We
>  drafted for him the thirty-nine words needed: "You are permitted to
>  link or otherwise combine this library with the program mkisofs, which
>  is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).  If You do,
>  you may distribute the combined work under the terms of the GPL."
>>>>

he apparently has a reason to favor the CDDL over GPL, and does not
want to discredit/weaken his position or the CDDL by succumbing to
what he believes to be false dangers.  giving ubuntu such a disclaimer
would reinforce these false dangers, and means he would have to
provide it [disclaimer] to every distro that wanted to use cdrtools,
and would implicitly accept the things he believes to not be true.

he says it's ok to use, seems good enough to me.

C Anthony