cdrtools vs cdrkit: flogging the dead horse

[Odysseus Flappington]

> The reason it's not in non-free (i.e. multiverse, in Ubuntu), is that
> distributing it is currently believed to be a contravention of the
> copyright interests of the owners of the elements licensed under the
> GPL. When we believe that something is a violation of civil law to

I'm not really taking sides here since I don't have enough
information, but out of curiosity, what do you mean when you say
"contravention of the copyright interests of the owners of the
elements licensed under the GPL."?

Do you  mean that the actual code which has been released under the
GPL contravenes the interests of the copyright holders? Perhaps the
copyright to some technology re DVD structures is stopping it from
being distributed? Similar to what libdvdcss2 provides to play
encrypted dvds and for the same reason isn't in the repos but need to
be installed using an awkward script?

Or, do you mean that there is an issue how the GPL'd code is being
distributed, or who owns it?

How come other applications can implement the technology to burn dvds
without legal issues, like k3b or brasero, but cdrtools can't?

Many thanks,
Alex