[Bug 177154] Re: cdrtools is undistributable

[Chris K. Jester-Young]

@Schily:

In regards to your claim of "There is no issue as the GPL allows non-GPL
code to be used from a GPLd project", this only applies to licences that
are GPL-compatible. CDDL is not one such licence:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

Therefore, a special exception needs to be granted by the copyright
holders of the GPL code before it can be linked to CDDL libraries:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLIncompatibleLibs

Now, the above links all refer to the opinion of the Free Software
Foundation, and I realise that it's not a universally-agreed opinion.
However, in looking at the source licence notices on mkisofs (as
distributed with cdrtools-2.01.01a39), there is a multitude of
contributors who have licensed their code under GPLv2+, without said
special exception, and it's quite possible that at least some of these
authors share the FSF's view of GPL licensing.

I apologise for flogging a dead horse; really, I came to this thread
because I was quite frustrated about not having cdrtools (specifically
cdrecord) to use on Hardy Heron, and sought to discover why it was
removed. Unfortunately for me (as somebody wishing to use cdrtools
without having to build my own package), the premise of this bug report
is quite justifiable: read according to the FSF stance, mkisofs really
cannot be distributed.

Personally, I don't use mkisofs all that much, and would therefore be
happy with a middle ground where all the cdrtools packages are
reinstated, bar mkisofs. However, regardless of whether Ubuntu would
agree to go along this path, the mkisofs licensing issue should be
fixed, either by getting in touch with all the copyright holders for a
special exception, or by dual-licensing the parts that mkisofs uses.

I understand that both paths are really troublesome: the former because
you have to track down lots of authors; the latter because you have to
identify all the CDDL code that mkisofs uses, all the code that said
CDDL code uses, and so on and so forth, and arrange to have them dual-
licensed, and if some of these have other copyright holders, then to
have their assent to the dual-licensing as well.

Anyway, long story short, I'm just writing as a happy user of cdrtools
who is now unhappy that it can no longer be distributed with Ubuntu.
Lately I have coastered two CDs trying to burn the new OpenSolaris
2008.05 release with cdrkit, and am only too glad to see cdrtools
return. I don't know if the above can really be resolved at all, but
this is my hope that it will. All the best!

-- 
cdrtools is undistributable
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/177154
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