Hi!
In former times, there was an excellent cooperative relationship between the development of cdrtools and the various Linux distributions (in special with Debian). Unfortunately, this changed in Spring 2004, a few months after the Debian package maintainer for the cdrtools has been replaced with a new and non-cooperative "downstream".
As a result, during the past few years, many Linux users have become upset from the results of a completely unneeded conflict initiated by the non-cooperative "downstream" package maintainer. Many Linux distributions (including RedHat and Fedora) have become victims of this conflict. The conflict started in May 2004 with some anti-OSS and anti-social actions against the OSS project bundle "cdrtools".
The non-cooperative "downstream" package maintainer started his high profile attack against the cdrtools project in May 2004. His attacks have been based on his personal frustration that was solely caused by his missing programming skills and his personal concept of dealing with these deficits. He later extended his attacks and finally incorrectly claimed that there were license problems in the cdrtools project and created a fork.
As _reaction_ on his claims and in order to defend the freedom of the cdrtools software against these claims that have been based on an incorrect GPL interpretation (it would turn the GPL into a non-free license if taken seriously), the license of the original software was changed to avoid the GPL as far as possible. This was done after many people from the OSS community and several lawyers have been asked about possible problems, caused by the planned license change. As nobody did see a problem, the license change was carried out. A lot of new code and functionality was introduced since then and many older bugs have been fixed in the original software. Nearly 50% of the current code is code that was introduced or rewritten after the license change did take place.
Note that the people who claim that there is a "potential problem that might result in a lawsuit" did never verify a possible problem and as they do not even own any Copyright on the code, they themselves are not allowed to sue people based on the cdrtools code.
At the same time, the fork introduced many new bugs and questionable changes that reduced it's portability and it's usability. While the code quality of the fork declined, some of the changes introduced Copyright law violations [1] and even GPL [2] violations, making the fork undistributable. In December 2006 the initiators of the unlawful changes have been contacted and informed in depth about the violations. They have been asked to make the fork legal again to no avail.
Eight months after the fork was created, the development of the fork stopped on May 6th 2007 as it's initiator stopped "working" on it. For some time, I was in hope that the big number of bugs in the fork (there are approx. 150 different bugs in total if you sum up all entries from all bug tracking systems from various Linux distributors) and the fact that it is no longer actively been worked on, would cause the Linux distributions to return to the legal original software. This did unfortunately not happen.
I did wait a long time in hope that the problem will go away initiated from judiciousness but after some time, I am no longer willing to tolerate the distribution of the questionable fork.
About a year ago, I asked the Sun Microsystems legal department to do another full legal review for the original software to make sure that none of the claims from the people who attack cdrtools is valid. In October 2008, the Sun legal department confirmed that there is no legal problem with the original software.
At CeBIT on March 6th 2009, there was a meeting with me (Jörg Schilling, the main developer and main Copyright holder), Simon Phipps (the Sun Microsystems OpenSource Evangelist), a neutral observer and a FTP-master from Debian. During this meeting, Debian agreed to start shipping the original software again as soon as possible.
I am in hope that RedHat and Fedora will also start to distribute the original software again and stop distributing the fork "cdrkit" because it is in conflict with the Copyright law [3] because it is full of well known bugs and because it is missing most features, people today expect from such software. Missing features are a typical result from decoupling from the main stream development. The source in the fork is based on 4 year old sources from the original. Note that working on the code from the fork is not an option as the initiators rejected to remove the Copyright violations 30 months ago and as too many show stopper bugs are unfixed in the fork since more than 24 months.
I am looking forward to see RedHat and Fedora start to ship again the legal original software from
ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/cdrecord/alpha/
and rejoin the community of OSS and user friendly distributions. Don't let the OSS users suffer anymore from the conflict introduced by a single hostile person. RedHat and Fedora should deliver what people need in order to be able to write CDs/DVDs/BluRays and this is the original software.
The original software is easy to compile (you just need to type "make" - or better "smake") and it is 100% complete, so it does not need any unusual software package besides a compiler. The original software is expected to be always bug-free as bug fixes typically take only a few hours.
The original software strictly follows all written conditions from the GPL [4].
Under the assumption that the GPL is a free OSS license [5] (and in special is compatible with the text in section 9 of the OSS definition) and that typical Linux distributions are at least mostly legal, the license combinations used in cdrtools are of course legal too, according to the best GPL explanation [6] [7] I could find in the net and of course according to the Sun Microsystems legal department. Lawrence Rosen, the Author of [6] and [7] advised the Open Source Initiative (www.opensource.org).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some statistics on the project activities:
Cdrecord started as project in January 1996, but it was built on top of older Code (e.g. libschily from 1984, libscg from 1986 and the schily makefile system from 1992). Cdrtools include now also e.g. mkisofs that started as Project in September 1993 and that is maintained by the cdrtools project since spring 1997. The license change towards using CDDL for most code has been done on May 15th 2006.
In the time between January 1985 and December 1995, there have been 638 file putbacks done in 385 groups (385 unique delta comments).
In the time between January 1996 and May 14th 2006, there have been 8847 file putbacks done in 4280 groups (4280 unique delta comments).
In the time between May 15th 2006 and today, there have been 4735 file putbacks done in 1695 groups (1695 unique delta comments).
Approx 30% of all putbacks have been made after May 15th 2006, this is why the fork misses so many features people like to see today....
In the time past May 6th 2007, there have been 2441 file putbacks done in 882 groups (882 unique delta comments). During the same time, there have been 63 putbacks in the fork. This why people call the fork "dead".
In other words: the original software has a sustained rate between 2.5 and 3 file changes per day since more than 13 years. This is why there are no know bugs and no known problems with the original software.
While the original project did deliver ~ 50 new releases (that did not have any known bugs at the time of delivery) since May 15th 2006, the fork did not deliver a single release without plenty of well known bugs. --------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__13.html [2] Whether it not the GPL violations apply to Redhat and Fedora also, depends on the way a typical Redhat/Fedora installation looks like. [3] http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/index.html [4] http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.php [5] http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php [6] http://www.rosenlaw.com/html/GPL.PDF [7] http://www.rosenlaw.com/Rosen_Ch06.pdf
Please help to defend OpenSource Software against attacks!
Best Regards
Jörg
I know nothing about this story :-) but I happen to remember a part of the original debate back in 2006, so for context here it is: http://lwn.net/Articles/198171/
The licence issue referred to, AFAICT, is that Joerg Schilling changed cdrtools from GPL to CDDL (in 2006) so someone (Debian?) launched cdrkit because GPL compatibility was seen as possibly essential (for combination with other GPL'd packages) and surely something worth keeping (among other reasons).
back to lurking...
I am not in any way officially speaking for fedora, Just my 2ct:
1. FSF is very explicit about GPL and CDDL:
This means a module covered by the GPL and a module covered by the CDDL cannot legally be linked together. We urge you not to use the CDDL for this reason.
So at this point it seems to be illegal to distribute mkisofs. I wonder if one could use a special exception (I asked FSF europe once on licensing an eclipse plugin but that was GPL'd source distributed with EPL components, not sure if that applies here.).
2. Jörg, could you please be more verbosive about why exactly fedora is currently violating UrhG? I cannot see how how you could revoke a once granted license because they use "your" filenames. Especially: Which marks do you claim are required because of §13 and since cdrkit is a derived work how do debian developers in _any_ way change _your_ work?
Christoph Höger choeger@cs.tu-berlin.de wrote:
I am not in any way officially speaking for fedora, Just my 2ct:
- FSF is very explicit about GPL and CDDL:
The FSF has no relevence for the cdrtools project as the FSF does not own Copyright on the project. Please let us discuss relevent text only.
This means a module covered by the GPL and a module covered by the CDDL cannot legally be linked together. We urge you not to use the CDDL for this reason.
This is text that was not written by a lawyer and it is a proof that we need to ignore claims from the FSF - sorry but the FSF is not a neutral institution. The FSF has private interests with propagating own products. This results in biased claims like the one above.
If you did read the articles from literature list I provided with my last mail, you did even understand why this claim from the FSF is not correct. Please read the articles from Lawrence Rose. He is a neutral lawyer and he explains the GPL in full details.
So at this point it seems to be illegal to distribute mkisofs. I wonder
The GPL was intentionally made compatible to any independent library under any license. See:
http://www.rosenlaw.com/html/GPL.PDF http://www.rosenlaw.com/Rosen_Ch06.pdf
If you believe that the GPL does not offer this compatibility, then you believe that any Linux distribution is illegal and you would need to remove the GPL from the list of approved OSS licenses and the licenses that follow the OpenSource definition in:
http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php
- Jörg, could you please be more verbosive about why exactly fedora is
currently violating UrhG? I cannot see how how you could revoke a once
I did do this to the initiators of the fork. As they have no interest in making the fork legal, it makes no sense to discuss this.
granted license because they use "your" filenames. Especially: Which marks do you claim are required because of ?13 and since cdrkit is a derived work how do debian developers in _any_ way change _your_ work?
A license like the GPL is just a contract and a contract cannot enforce claims that are in conflict with the related law. You only have the right to modify the sources if you follow the rules from the law. As the initiators of the fork don't like to do this, the fork cannot be legally distributed.
Jörg
"Ciaran O'Riordan" ciaran@member.fsf.org wrote:
I know nothing about this story :-) but I happen to remember a part of the original debate back in 2006, so for context here it is: http://lwn.net/Articles/198171/
Could we please have a fact based discussion?
The article you quote is not based on facts.
Jörg
On 12/06/09 20:45, Joerg Schilling wrote:
"Ciaran O'Riordan"ciaran@member.fsf.org wrote:
I know nothing about this story :-) but I happen to remember a part of the original debate back in 2006, so for context here it is: http://lwn.net/Articles/198171/
Could we please have a fact based discussion?
The article you quote is not based on facts.
Jörg
I don't know the background to this. But why not re-licence all your new code since 2006 as gpl. If the cddl, is what's blocking it's adoption, by various distros.
Frank
Frank Murphy frankly3d@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/06/09 20:45, Joerg Schilling wrote:
"Ciaran O'Riordan"ciaran@member.fsf.org wrote:
I know nothing about this story :-) but I happen to remember a part of the original debate back in 2006, so for context here it is: http://lwn.net/Articles/198171/
Could we please have a fact based discussion?
The article you quote is not based on facts.
I don't know the background to this.
If you don't know the background, I recommend you to read the mail I send today:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-legal-list/2009-June/msg00012.html
and the other background information that is on the project's web pages since years:
http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/linux-dist.html
But why not re-licence all your new code since 2006 as gpl. If the cddl, is what's blocking it's adoption, by various distros.
Sorry, the problem is unrelated to licenses. It is resulting from a social problem of the initiator of the fork.
The CDDL is a generally approved OSS license and even accepted by RedHat (see e.g. the star project). In addition, the GPL was made intentionally compatible to _any_ independend library of any license, so the license combinations used in mkisofs do not create any legal problem.
I am not going to re-introduce a license that acording to the private interpretation from the initiator of the fork is not a valid OSS license, so the GPL is no option.
Jörg
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 3:23 PM, Joerg SchillingJoerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de wrote:
I am not going to re-introduce a license that acording to the private interpretation from the initiator of the fork is not a valid OSS license, so the GPL is no option.
Where do you get the idea that the Debian maintainers feel the GPL is not a valid OSS license? They've not maintained that either the GPL or the CDDL are non-free, they're saying they're incompatible. Again, from the webpage[1]:
"While the CDDL *may* be a free license, we never questioned if it is free or not, as it is not our place to decide this as the Debian cdrtools maintainers. However, having been approved by OSI doesn't mean it's ok for any usage, as Jörg unfortunately seems to assume. There are several OSI-approved licenses that are GPL-incompatible and CDDL is one of them. That is and always was our point."
The GPL is a free OSS license. The CDDL is a free OSS license. They are not compatible with each other and code licensed on them cannot be used together. Your software is problematic from a licensing perspective. The personalities of the Debian maintainers are not germane to this discussion. Please present fact-based reasons for your disagreement and justification for the use of your software in a GPL environment. Your opinions about the Debian maintainers are irrelevant.
[1] http://lwn.net/Articles/198171/
"Christofer C. Bell" christofer.c.bell@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 3:23 PM, Joerg SchillingJoerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de wrote:
I am not going to re-introduce a license that acording to the private interpretation from the initiator of the fork is not a valid OSS license, so the GPL is no option.
Where do you get the idea that the Debian maintainers feel the GPL is not a valid OSS license? They've not maintained that either the GPL
The claims and GPL interpretations from initiators of the fork are in conflict with the OpenSource Definition from:
http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php
If you follow these claims, you first would need to remove the GPL from the list of approved OSS licenses and later you would need to claim that License combinations seen on Linux (e.g. a GPL program uses a LGPL libc) cannot be legally distributed.
I however _do_ believe that the GPL is an an approved and valid OSS license and for this reason, there is no problem with the mentioned GPL LGPL combinations and of course with GPL and CDDL also.
I recommend you to read these articles:
http://www.rosenlaw.com/html/GPL.PDF http://www.rosenlaw.com/Rosen_Ch06.pdf
They explain very detailed why there is no problem in cdrtools.
Note: I was part of the discussion in the 1980s that resulted in making the GPL compliant with the reality. I thus know why GPL programs have been made compatible to any independend library under any license.
BTW: The FSF of course knows about this fact and for this reason did not sue Veritas for distributing a GNU tar derivate that was distributed together with binary only closed source libraries it was linked against.
Jörg
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 2:45 PM, Joerg Schilling Joerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de wrote:
"Ciaran O'Riordan" ciaran@member.fsf.org wrote:
I know nothing about this story :-) but I happen to remember a part of the original debate back in 2006, so for context here it is: http://lwn.net/Articles/198171/
Could we please have a fact based discussion?
The article you quote is not based on facts.
Jörg,
The link provided in the above article contains pretty detailed reasoning justifying the fork of cdrkit from cdrtools. In reading your post, I see the following 3 main points:
* I disagree with the fork. * The fork is buggy. * Please use my software instead.
I don't see any detailed reasoning, backed by evidence, that your position is the correct one to adopt. Can you please provide some more detailed reasoning for your disagreement?
The salient point from the webpage linked above:
"The CDDL is incompatible with the GPL. The FSF itself says that this is the case as do people who helped draft the CDDL. One current and one former Sun employee visited the annual Debian conference in Mexico in 2006. Danese Cooper clearly stated there that the CDDL was intentionally modelled on the MPL in order to make it GPL-incompatible."
Are you saying this statement is not true?
You furthermore claim that the distribution of cdrkit is "illegal." My understanding is that cdrkit is based on GPL licensed code. Is there code that is not GPL licensed in the software contained in cdrkit? The GPL grants full modification and redistribution rights to all who receive code licensed under it. If the maintainers of cdrkit received, are modifying, and then redistributing that code under the terms of the GPL, what is being done that's "illegal"?
Note: IANAL, I do not speak for the Fedora Project.
-- Chris
"Christofer C. Bell" christofer.c.bell@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 2:45 PM, Joerg Schilling Joerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de wrote:
"Ciaran O'Riordan" ciaran@member.fsf.org wrote:
I know nothing about this story :-) but I happen to remember a part of the original debate back in 2006, so for context here it is: http://lwn.net/Articles/198171/
Could we please have a fact based discussion?
The article you quote is not based on facts.
The link provided in the above article contains pretty detailed reasoning justifying the fork of cdrkit from cdrtools. In reading
the link above contains one single true claim:
In the past, we, the Debian maintainers of cdrtools, had a good and mutually cooperative relationship with Jörg Schilling. He even commented on Debian bug reports, which is one of the best things an upstream maintainer can do. Naturally, there were occasionally disagreements, but this is normal.
The rest contains a lot of accusations but not a single legal proof.
Please read the relvent information I did provide already, see e.g.:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-legal-list/2009-June/msg00017.html
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-legal-list/2009-June/msg00019.html
Jörg
On 12/06/09 21:33, Joerg Schilling wrote:
The rest contains a lot of accusations but not a single legal proof.
Please read the relvent information I did provide already, see e.g.:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-legal-list/2009-June/msg00017.html
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-legal-list/2009-June/msg00019.html
Jörg
http://lists.gpl-violations.org/pipermail/legal/2007-July/001065.html
This message is from a lawyer.
Frank
Frank Murphy frankly3d@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/06/09 21:33, Joerg Schilling wrote:
The rest contains a lot of accusations but not a single legal proof.
Please read the relvent information I did provide already, see e.g.:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-legal-list/2009-June/msg00017.html
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-legal-list/2009-June/msg00019.html
http://lists.gpl-violations.org/pipermail/legal/2007-July/001065.html
This message is from a lawyer.
You are mistaken: Patent attorneys are not lawyers.
The article you quoted in addition does not contain useful or valid legal theories. It just quotes a claim written by a laymen.
Please read this:
http://www.rosenlaw.com/Rosen_Ch06.pdf
It gives valid legal theories for all claims and it explains why there is no problem.
Jörg
On 12/06/09 22:27, Joerg Schilling wrote:
Frank Murphyfrankly3d@gmail.com wrote:
Please read this:
Why, they didn't write the GPL.
Give me a lawyer from the GPL Copyright holders. you may have then have something worth peoples time to read. Until then this stands: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#CDDL
Frank
Frank Murphy frankly3d@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/06/09 22:27, Joerg Schilling wrote:
Frank Murphyfrankly3d@gmail.com wrote:
Please read this:
Why, they didn't write the GPL.
But Rosen gives useful and cleanly legal based explanations.
Give me a lawyer from the GPL Copyright holders.
The FSF has no relevence in this case as the FSF does not hold any Copyright on the related code. The text on the FSF web pages was written by laymen and does not contain legal based explanations.
If you have legal experiences, you are free to discuss real problem but it does not help to see just repeated claims from laymen that have no relation to the cdrtools project.
I am sorry - I was in hope that this is a legal mailing list. I was in hope to get in contact with people who know enough to be able to have a fact based discussion.
What I see is laymen that quote claims written by laymen.
RedHat and Fedora have a serious problem because they publish an undistributable fork instead of the legal original.
As I mentioned, I believe that RedHat has become a victim of a non-cooperative downstream maintainer. Now I have informed RedHat and in case that RedHat does not correct the mistakes from the past, things look different.
Is RedHat a member of the OSS community or is RedHat part of the agressions agasinst OSS?
Jörg
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 5:43 PM, Joerg >
The FSF has no relevence in this case as the FSF does not hold any Copyright on the related code. The text on the FSF web pages was written by laymen and does not contain legal based explanations.
Please take this as constructive criticism. This statement here is why no one is taking you seriously. You claim the FSF has no relevance despite the fact that you used *their* license. The FSF is full of lawyers in whose opinion *their* license says is not compatible with the CDDL and thus you are mistaken when you say it is.
You also claim that cdrkit is "illegal". Your older cdrtools is licensed under the GPL, the derivative work, cdrkit, is likewise, in compliance with the GPL, also licensed under the GPL. Saying it's illegal is absurd on its face.
This, Joerg, is why no one is taking you seriously in this discussion. Again, please accept this as constructive criticism and use this as a jumping off point to re-evaluate your arguments and frame them in a way that people can take seriously.
Thank you.
"Christofer C. Bell" christofer.c.bell@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 5:43 PM, Joerg >
The FSF has no relevence in this case as the FSF does not hold any Copyright on the related code. The text on the FSF web pages was written by laymen and does not contain legal based explanations.
Please take this as constructive criticism. This statement here is why no one is taking you seriously. You claim the FSF has no relevance despite the fact that you used *their* license. The FSF is full of lawyers in whose opinion *their* license says is not compatible with the CDDL and thus you are mistaken when you say it is.
I did talk with one of them (Eben Moglen) and he did confirm that the claims on the FSF web page are wrong. They are made for political reasons.
You also claim that cdrkit is "illegal". Your older cdrtools is licensed under the GPL, the derivative work, cdrkit, is likewise, in compliance with the GPL, also licensed under the GPL. Saying it's illegal is absurd on its face.
You do not listen to the facts, are you interested in a fact based discussion?
If you are able to mention any valid legal agrument, you are of course welcome.
For now, it seems that you are just one of the laymen that is unable to give any proof for his claims. If you believe that there is a license problem in the original software, use valid quotes from the original GPL text. Unfortunately, you quote claims from the FSF that are in conflict with the GPL text.
The code in question is licensed under the GPL. The GPL FAQ from the FSF you did quote is no license text and it is in conflict with the GPL text.
Jörg
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 6:10 PM, Joerg SchillingJoerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de wrote:
I did talk with one of them (Eben Moglen) and he did confirm that the claims on the FSF web page are wrong. They are made for political reasons.
Please provide a link to Mr. Moglen's opinion. That would clear things right up.
You do not listen to the facts, are you interested in a fact based discussion?
Everyone here is interested in facts. You've been presenting your layman's legal opinion (ie; not legal advice). Folks have been posting the advice of lawyers (ie; can be construed as legal advice).
The solution to your problem rests in your hands. Obviously, no matter how right you may be, your arguments are falling on deaf ears. It doesn't matter that you feel the GPL and CDDL are compatible. It doesn't matter that Eben Moglen may have privately told you that they are compatible. They are generally accepted as incompatible and so ... they are.
The solution is obvious, relicense cdrtools in a way that is generally accepted as GPL compatible. Until you are willing and able to do so, you're wasting everyone's time (including your own). Which do you prefer to enjoy? Your "rightness" in the face of the world telling you that you are wrong or having the world at large enjoy using software you have created?
Again, the solution is in your hands.
"Christofer C. Bell" christofer.c.bell@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 6:10 PM, Joerg SchillingJoerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de wrote:
I did talk with one of them (Eben Moglen) and he did confirm that the claims on the FSF web page are wrong. They are made for political reasons.
Please provide a link to Mr. Moglen's opinion. That would clear things right up.
You do not listen to the facts, are you interested in a fact based discussion?
Everyone here is interested in facts. You've been presenting your
So please prove this and send some facts. So far you did just send quotes from laymen that do not contain any fact you may base a discussion on.
You claim that there is a problem with the original code, so prove this claim or admit that you are wrong.
Jörg
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 4:27 PM, Joerg SchillingJoerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de wrote:
Frank Murphy frankly3d@gmail.com wrote:
http://lists.gpl-violations.org/pipermail/legal/2007-July/001065.html
This message is from a lawyer.
You are mistaken: Patent attorneys are not lawyers.
Now you're talking nonsense. Patent attorneys are most definitely lawyers. That's what an attorney *is* (a lawyer)[1].
The article you quoted in addition does not contain useful or valid legal theories. It just quotes a claim written by a laymen.
Please read this:
http://www.rosenlaw.com/Rosen_Ch06.pdf
It gives valid legal theories for all claims and it explains why there is no problem.
So far I've read the first 1/3 of the document and everything I've read disagrees with your position. The other documents you've provided to back up your position are written by you and are filled with the same rants you've posted here about how you personally dislike the Debian maintainers of cdrkit, how you feel the FSF's interpretation of *their own license* is bunk, how you dislike that cdrkit is "missing features" and "contains bugs", and how you really really want everyone to use cdrtools instead.
Here's my interpretation:
You made a bad call when you decided to relicense your code under a GPL-incompatible CDDL license. As a result, receivers of older versions of your code, which is under the GPL, decided to fork the code and continue to use the GPL license for their work. This really gets under your skin so you embark on a campaign to smear the names of the people who forked your software, cast doubt on the legality of their fork (despite *overwhelming* evidence you are mistaken - from the authors of both licenses), and otherwise "encourage" people to abandon cdrkit in favor of your own work, cdrtools.
In support of this campaign, you post legal opinion provided by Lawrence Rosen[2], an attorney at law, former General Counsel for the Open Software Initiative and an advisor to the Apache Software Foundation, Python project, and the Free Standards Group[3]. Ironically, his legal opinion (note, he *is* a lawyer and thus qualified to give legal advice) disagrees with your position[4]. His position is that work, when combined with a GPL licensed work, must be licensed under the GPL. Since
The opinions of a patent attorney are provided, also disagreeing with your position, so you claim that patent attorneys are not lawyers, a claim that flies in the face of reason.
Regardless of your personal opinions, the GPL is very clear that the Debian maintainers you hold in such low esteem are well within their rights to fork cdrtools, to refuse include cdrtools in Debian, and are free to modify and use your original GPL licensed code in their works.
Your personal opinions do not matter. Nothing illegal is going on. Your license is not being violated (after all, you chose to originally use the GPL). People are free to choose not to use your software. You may not like this, that's too bad.
You keep changing the playing field to try to justify your position: the FSF doesn't know what they're talking about and should be ignored, patent attorneys are not lawyers, etc, etc. The assumption that everyone is operating under is that "the CDDL and GPL are incompatible and works licensed under each cannot be legally linked together." This assumption is not going to change no matter how much you push your own views[5].
If you want cdrtools to be used, then you have a choice: you can relicense it under the GPL or or other GPL-compatible license, or you can choose to accept that your software isn't going to be used.
[1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/attorney [2] http://www.rosenlaw.com/rosen.htm [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Rosen [4] http://www.rosenlaw.com/Rosen_Ch06.pdf [5] http://osdir.com/ml/redhat.fedora.advisory-board/2006-08/msg00226.html (note the author)
"Christofer C. Bell" christofer.c.bell@gmail.com wrote:
Please read this:
http://www.rosenlaw.com/Rosen_Ch06.pdf
It gives valid legal theories for all claims and it explains why there is no problem.
So far I've read the first 1/3 of the document and everything I've read disagrees with your position. The other documents you've
Or in other words, you have no arguments.
If you have any valid arguments you are welcome. As long as you don't, I see no way to continue the discussion as it will not take us any further.
It is a shame that laymen repeat claims about supposed license incompatibility without giving any evidence. It is a shame that people still quote unproven claims from the the initiator of agressions against the OSS project cdrtools.
Is there any hope to have a fact based discussion in this mailing list?
In other words: if you really believe that there is a license problem you should be able to name it and to prove it. BTW: Just giving vague signs without any evidence is usually called "FUD"...
Jörg
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 5:58 PM, Joerg SchillingJoerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de wrote:
Or in other words, you have no arguments.
If you have any valid arguments you are welcome. As long as you don't, I see no way to continue the discussion as it will not take us any further.
http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/gpl-compatible.html I'm sure you can find where you're mentioned in that piece. I'll point it out to make it easy:
"Sadly, some people don't learn. Essentially the same thing happened in 2006, when the author of "cdrtools" tried to switch to a GPL-incompatible license; all major distributors started and switched to a new project (cdrkit) instead. The original cdrtools suite is a set of tools for writing information to CDs and DVDs. In this case, Jörg Schilling (author of cdrtools) changed his license from the GPL to the GPL-incompatible CDDL. Jörg Schilling claimed that there was no issue, but this is simply nonsense. Jörg is not a lawyer, while all lawyers who examined the issue, as well as the developers of both the CDDL and GPL licenses, agreed that the licenses are incompatible."
The sad fact for you is that we trust the lawyers more than we trust you. To elaborate, again from the same piece:
"At this point, almost no one cares what the original author does with his version; the version people actually use is controlled by others."
"Christofer C. Bell" christofer.c.bell@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 5:58 PM, Joerg SchillingJoerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de wrote:
Or in other words, you have no arguments.
If you have any valid arguments you are welcome. As long as you don't, I see no way to continue the discussion as it will not take us any further.
http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/gpl-compatible.html I'm sure you can
You are funny - you just quote another piece of FUD.
Do you have any real argument?
So far, none of the answering persons did send any useful argument. This seems to verify that you don't have any arguments to prove your claims or that you are unable or unwilling to have a fact based discussion.
The real bad thing I see from this mail exchange is that there seem to be many people in this list that ignore the demands from the users of the code and that don't care that the users get defective and undistributable code although there is perfectly legal and working original code.
The way you do the discussion lets me believe that you are unimportant and not the right person to talk to.
You continue to send no facts. This sems to verify that you know that you are unable to prove your claim that there is a proble with the license of the original code. If you continue with this personal opinion, I expect you to give an explanation.
Is there no RedHat lawyer in this list?
Is there no people interested in OSS on this list?
Jörg
On 13/06/09 00:25, Joerg Schilling wrote:
Is there no RedHat lawyer in this list?
If you believe you have a case. Hire, a lawyer. No one is stopping you. Why should anyone else supply you one.
Is there no people interested in OSS on this list?
Jörg
I Believe most would me more in interested in FL(legal)OSS
My opinions, a layman like you.
Frank
Frank Murphy frankly3d@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/06/09 00:25, Joerg Schilling wrote:
Is there no RedHat lawyer in this list?
If you believe you have a case. Hire, a lawyer. No one is stopping you. Why should anyone else supply you one.
You seem to have a serous problem with understanding the topic.
I don't need a lawyer, RedHat and Fedora need a lawyer because RadHat and Fedoray have a serious legal problem that results from blindly beliveing the wrong people.....
This problem needs to be solved and it cannot be solved by people who neither have a clue, nor interest or influence to solve the Problem at RedHat's site. So, as long as you are unable to fetch the right people please stay silent in this discussion.
As mentioned before, it does not make sene to talk with people who are not interested or able to have a fact based discussion. I am only interested in a fact based discussion......
Jörg
On 13/06/09 11:10, Joerg Schilling wrote:
Frank Murphyfrankly3d@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/06/09 00:25, Joerg Schilling wrote:
Is there no RedHat lawyer in this list?
If you believe you have a case. Hire, a lawyer. No one is stopping you. Why should anyone else supply you one.
You seem to have a serous problem with understanding the topic.
You not understanding, is the topic. If you had a problem wirh RH\Fedora, I' sure there would be a Cease and Desist already applied for.
I don't need a lawyer, RedHat and Fedora need a lawyer because RadHat and Fedoray have a serious legal problem that results from blindly beliveing the wrong people.....
- Not as far as I, or any reasonable person can see.
This problem needs to be solved and it cannot be solved by people who neither have a clue,
Talk about the kettle.
nor interest or influence to solve the Problem at RedHat's site.
So, as long as you are unable to fetch the right people please stay silent in this discussion.
You're a laymen, so am I. We're equals. You speak, I or any other equal is not prevented from replying. If you want to speak to a lawyer, hire one.
As mentioned before, it does not make sene to talk with people who are not interested or able to have a fact based discussion.
Then why are you talking fantasy.
I am only interested in
a fact based discussion......
Not that anyone has seen so far. Just wishful thinking on your part, because the world has moved on.
Frank
Frank Murphy frankly3d@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/06/09 11:10, Joerg Schilling wrote:
Frank Murphyfrankly3d@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/06/09 00:25, Joerg Schilling wrote:
Is there no RedHat lawyer in this list?
If you believe you have a case. Hire, a lawyer. No one is stopping you. Why should anyone else supply you one.
You seem to have a serous problem with understanding the topic.
You not understanding, is the topic.
OK, it seems that I need to ignore you in future unless you show interest in a fact based diuscussion.
So far, I did see from you only unproven claims and quotes to unproven claims from other laymen. These claims, seen from you, are even in conflict with the GPL text.
Jörg
On 13/06/09 11:48, Joerg Schilling wrote:
Frank Murphyfrankly3d@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/06/09 11:10, Joerg Schilling wrote:
Frank Murphyfrankly3d@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/06/09 00:25, Joerg Schilling wrote:
Is there no RedHat lawyer in this list?
If you believe you have a case. Hire, a lawyer. No one is stopping you. Why should anyone else supply you one.
You seem to have a serous problem with understanding the topic.
You not understanding, is the topic.
OK, it seems that I need to ignore you in future unless you show interest in a fact based diuscussion.
When you start one, lmk
So far, I did see from you only unproven claims
Kettle.
and quotes to unproven
claims from other laymen. These claims, seen from you, are even in conflict with the GPL text.
One layman to another.
Frank
Please stop this ridiculous thread of bickering. It serves no useful purpose at this point.
Our main Fedora Legal liaison, Spot, is on vacation right now. Although we do have actual lawyers who read this list, the level to which the discussion has dropped makes it ever more unlikely that any of them will respond directly. Spot will review this issue when he returns and we'll decide then what next action is warranted.
Thank you for your consideration.
Paul
"Paul W. Frields" stickster@gmail.com wrote:
Please stop this ridiculous thread of bickering. It serves no useful purpose at this point.
Thank you for reprimanding the people who are responsible for tearing down the level of the discussion.
I am in hope that the lawyers understand that I pointed to a serious problem at RedHats and Feroras site that needs to be solved.
Jörg
On 06/12/2009 02:44 PM, Joerg Schilling wrote:
I am in hope that RedHat and Fedora will also start to distribute the original software again and stop distributing the fork "cdrkit" because it is in conflict with the Copyright law [3] because it is full of well known bugs and because it is missing most features, people today expect from such software. Missing features are a typical result from decoupling from the main stream development. The source in the fork is based on 4 year old sources from the original. Note that working on the code from the fork is not an option as the initiators rejected to remove the Copyright violations 30 months ago and as too many show stopper bugs are unfixed in the fork since more than 24 months.
Mr. Schilling,
You seem to have several concerns here. I will again attempt, for the sake of clarity, to separate them and address them individually.
I) The software "cdrkit" is full of well known bugs, and missing key features.
This point may or may not be correct, however, the presence of bugs and the absence of features do not cause any legal concerns, short of possible warranty issues, but those are thoroughly disclaimed by the license (GPLv2) on cdrkit:
" 11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION."
II) "...many Linux users have become upset from the results of a completely unneeded conflict initiated by the non-cooperative "downstream" package maintainer."
There are 11 open Fedora bugs against cdrkit. None of them reflect this claim. Nevertheless, even if it was true, it does not reflect a legal or licensing concern.
III) There are no licensing incompatibilities in the current "cdrtools" software.
This is patently false, and it was the primary reason why Red Hat/Fedora no longer include the "cdrtools" software. "cdrtools" bundles and depends upon GPL licensed software components, while the code codebase of "cdrtools" is under the CDDL license. The CDDL has been reviewed by multiple organizations, including the FSF and Red Hat Legal, and they agree in the assessment that dependent combinations of CDDL and GPL code result in an incompatible work. In addition, there is ample documentation that this was the intention of the CDDL license authors (Sun), to prevent code sharing/compatibility with the Linux kernel.
I personally spoke to Simon Phipps on this subject, and he feels that it may be possible to avoid the CDDL/GPL license compatibility concerns by using the Sun Studio toolchain rather than GCC. In discussing this possibility with Red Hat Legal, we disagree with Simon's assessments, so even if Fedora/Red Hat included the Sun Studio toolchain (we do not currently do so), we do not agree that its use resolves the licensing concerns here.
IV) Some of the changes in "cdrkit" introduced Copyright law violations and even GPL violations.
To date, you have never provided anyone with any evidence of specific examples of code in "cdrkit" which violates Copyright law or the terms of the GPL. In our previous private discussions, I repeatedly requested specific examples, but you were entirely unable or unwilling to present these. Therefore, I am forced to assume that they do not exist.
**** So, in summary, you have failed to raise any valid concerns about Red Hat/Fedora's inclusion of "cdrkit". In addition, the situation which prevents Red Hat/Fedora from including "cdrtools" remains unchanged.
If you wish to discuss this further, you will need to present either:
1) Specific examples of code in "cdrkit" which is in any way violating someone's copyright or the terms of its licensing.
2) A version of "cdrtools" which does not contain inherent license incompatibilities. This could possibly be accomplished by adding some sort of linking exception for GPL licensed code, or by choosing a license which is known to be GPL compatible as either a replacement for the CDDL or a dual-license option. I would recommend that you retain legal counsel to assist you with this task if you decide to pursue it, the Software Freedom Law Center provides no-cost assistance to FOSS coders in such matters (http://www.softwarefreedom.org/).
If and when you present either of these items, we will be happy to discuss this matter further, either publicly or privately, but otherwise, we consider the matter closed.
It is also worth noting that we do not need any additional copies of German Copyright Law (or any Legal Reference Texts) or Lawrence Rosen's writings, as neither of these things are overly relevant to the potential concerns surrounding the issues in these situations.
Thanks,
Tom "spot" Callaway, Fedora Legal
Mr. Callaway,
in a previous mail you did already admit that you are not a lawyer. In your last mail you verified that you do not understand that background of the case and that you did not ask a lawyer for help.
I don't know your position in Redhat, but as long as you do net get informed, it seems that you are the wrong person to talk to. Would you please be so kind to direct the discussion to the right people?
You last mail contains close to no valid claim, let me comment your claims anyhow in hope that it helps you to begin to understand the problem.
"Tom "spot" Callaway" tcallawa@redhat.com wrote:
You seem to have several concerns here. I will again attempt, for the sake of clarity, to separate them and address them individually.
I) The software "cdrkit" is full of well known bugs, and missing key features.
This point may or may not be correct, however, the presence of bugs and the absence of features do not cause any legal concerns, short of possible warranty issues, but those are thoroughly disclaimed by the license (GPLv2) on cdrkit:
Here you seem to missunderstand the OSS community. Redhat is a OSS redistributor. OSS redistributors depend on the work of OSS authors and thus should collaborate with them. Redhat also has customers and customers don't like to be forced by their distributor to use defective software when they know that there is also software without known bugs.
It seems that you still did not yet read: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/linux-dist.html
as it lists some of the bugs and missing features in the fork. Given the fact that redhat installations default to a UTF-8 based locale, it seems to be extremely unwise to distribute a fork that does not correctly support UTF-8 while the original software has no problem with UTF-8 locales. Is this a result of the unawareness of an US citizen that is only used to use 7 bit US-ASCII?
II) "...many Linux users have become upset from the results of a completely unneeded conflict initiated by the non-cooperative "downstream" package maintainer."
There are 11 open Fedora bugs against cdrkit. None of them reflect this claim. Nevertheless, even if it was true, it does not reflect a legal or licensing concern.
I don't care about the numbers you give me, I however care about reality and if you sum up all unfixed bugs from all Linux distributors that distribute cdrkit, I see a total of more than 100 unfixed bugs.
You should also look at the bugs for cdrkit in redhat, suse, debian, ubuntu and mandriva and you of course also need to check the bug lists for brasero on these distributions. It is most unlikely that the bugs listed there do not apply to redhat.
III) There are no licensing incompatibilities in the current "cdrtools" software.
This is patently false, and it was the primary reason why Red Hat/Fedora no longer include the "cdrtools" software. "cdrtools" bundles and depends upon GPL licensed software components, while the code codebase of "cdrtools" is under the CDDL license. The CDDL has been reviewed by multiple organizations, including the FSF and Red Hat Legal, and they agree in the assessment that dependent combinations of CDDL and GPL code result in an incompatible work. In addition, there is ample documentation that this was the intention of the CDDL license authors (Sun), to prevent code sharing/compatibility with the Linux kernel.
Your claim is obviously false and I mentioned already that the Sun legal departement did a full legal review on cdrtools and could not find any license or legal problem in the original cdrtools. Your claim that the CDDL was designed to be incompatible with the GPL is a fairytale that is spread by people that like to harm OSS collaboration. Simon Phipps did confirm that this is not true and you should believe in what the official Sun OSS Evangelist says.
Regarding your claims about the FSF: the FSF did not review cdrtools and the FSF is even completely irrelevant for this case. The FSF does not own any rights on cdrtools and the FSF does not distribute the original software. With respect to the original cdrtools software, the FSF is no more than an uninvolved third party.
BTW: With respect to derived work from cdrtools, the FSF is a Copyright violator as the FSF publishes vcdimager and as vcdimager claims that all code is under GPL but the Reed Solomon coder implementation in vcdimager is based on code that intentionally never has been published under GPL. You can check this with the Author of the Code Heiko Eißfeldt.
I personally spoke to Simon Phipps on this subject, and he feels that it may be possible to avoid the CDDL/GPL license compatibility concerns by using the Sun Studio toolchain rather than GCC. In discussing this possibility with Red Hat Legal, we disagree with Simon's assessments, so even if Fedora/Red Hat included the Sun Studio toolchain (we do not currently do so), we do not agree that its use resolves the licensing concerns here.
Let me asume that you do not _intentionally_ spread FUD....
.... you then at least confirm that you did miss everything that is important for our case. It should be obvious that you cannot use a different GPL interpretation depending on which project you are talking about. Iff redhat believes in the strange claims from Eduard Bloch, then it should be obvious that you would need to apply his claim to all software redhat distributes. This would make it impossible to distribute redhat and this would in addition make the GPL a clearly non-free license. Note that the FSF insists that the GPL has to interpreted in a way that would make it compatible to the OSS definition at: http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php
Using SunStudio to compile your code could help to avoid some of the problems you only have if you believe in the claims from Eduard Bloch as SunStudio may help to avoid having code from the GNU libc inside the binaries that have been created from GPLd sources, even in case of dynamic linking. In short, this assumption would force you to convert your master libc source to GPL and in return forbid you to distribute any X based GUI binaries.
If you don't understand this, ask your lawyers or read the GPL explanation from Lawrence Rosen at: http://www.rosenlaw.com/Rosen_Ch06.pdf
IV) Some of the changes in "cdrkit" introduced Copyright law violations and even GPL violations.
To date, you have never provided anyone with any evidence of specific examples of code in "cdrkit" which violates Copyright law or the terms of the GPL. In our previous private discussions, I repeatedly requested specific examples, but you were entirely unable or unwilling to present these. Therefore, I am forced to assume that they do not exist.
As mentioned before, the facts have been presented to the people who are responsible for the Copyright violation. I provided the information to the Debian BTS and some people at Debian preferred to hide the related bug entry instead of discussing it. These people reject to fix the legal problems they introduced and as the fork is full of bugs, it is not apropritate to put any effort in the illegal fork.
I am not willing to give the bug id to a public mailing list as the thread is full of personal insults. I am however willing to discuss things in private communication.
The easy fix for your problem is to start distributing the legal original software instead of the illegal fork. I am willing to discuss with you a path that leads within some time in the near future, to redhat distributing again the legal original software instead of the illegal fork.
So, in summary, you have failed to raise any valid concerns about Red Hat/Fedora's inclusion of "cdrkit". In addition, the situation which prevents Red Hat/Fedora from including "cdrtools" remains unchanged.
In Summary, you did not ask a real informed lawyer.
If you don't like to be seen as a OSS hostile person, you should stop spreading FUD on the original software and if you really believe that there is a problem I would of course be happy to discuss your arguments. Up to now, you unfortunately did not send any new arguments, the old ones have already been refuted.
You currently really have a legal problem that you need to fix. I recommend you to do this in a gentlemen like way - so please present facts if you see things different to me.
In my opinion, in the opinion of my lawyer and in the opinion of the Sun legal department there is no need to dual license cdrtools as there is no legal problem in cdrtools.
Note that the copyright violation in the fork was introduced by Germans in Germany on code that was written by Germans in Germany. You are distributing cdrkit in Germany so it is obvious that you need to read the German Copyright law at: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/index.html
As mentioned several times already, I recommend you to consult a lawyer in order to get help to understand your situation.
I am OSS oriented, so I am interested in fostering OSS against attacks and I hope that you finally are OSS oriented too.
Best regards
Jörg
On 08/13/2009 11:43 AM, Joerg Schilling wrote:
Mr. Callaway,
in a previous mail you did already admit that you are not a lawyer. In your last mail you verified that you do not understand that background of the case and that you did not ask a lawyer for help.
Please do not feed the troll. Both Red Hat Legal and Fedora Legal consider this matter a non-issue, and Joerg's response makes it abundantly clear that further discussion of his unique perspectives will not lead to anything productive.
~spot
"Tom "spot" Callaway" tcallawa@redhat.com wrote:
On 08/13/2009 11:43 AM, Joerg Schilling wrote:
Mr. Callaway,
in a previous mail you did already admit that you are not a lawyer. In your last mail you verified that you do not understand that background of the case and that you did not ask a lawyer for help.
Please do not feed the troll. Both Red Hat Legal and Fedora Legal consider this matter a non-issue, and Joerg's response makes it abundantly clear that further discussion of his unique perspectives will not lead to anything productive.
Thank you for proving that you have not a single valid legal argument and that you prefer to send personal offenses before having a fact based discussion.
Does your response mean that we need to consider redhat to be OSS hostile?
Jörg
On 08/13/2009 12:56 PM, Joerg Schilling wrote:
Does your response mean that we need to consider redhat to be OSS hostile?
On the contrary, I would consider that dealing with you, personally, is a futile endeavour. Fedora remains committed to Free Software, and should you choose to resolve the inherent incompatibilities with the licensing you have chosen in your software, will happily consider including it in Fedora.
However, as you clearly disagree with the assessments of Red Hat's legal team (all of whom are lawyers), as well as the Free Software Foundation's legal team (all of whom are lawyers), I see no further productive outcome in continuing to converse with you, especially as you continue to draw incorrect conclusions while simultaneously making irrelevant points, citing irrelevant documents, and making personal attacks.
I would in fact go so far as to state that it is you, and your actions, which are "OSS hostile". Accordingly, this will be my last post on this thread, and I recommend that others also refrain from "feeding the troll".
~tom
"Tom "spot" Callaway" tcallawa@redhat.com wrote:
However, as you clearly disagree with the assessments of Red Hat's legal team (all of whom are lawyers), as well as the Free Software Foundation's legal team (all of whom are lawyers), I see no further productive outcome in continuing to converse with you, especially as you continue to draw incorrect conclusions while simultaneously making irrelevant points, citing irrelevant documents, and making personal attacks.
I am disappointed to see that you again confirm that you have no interest in a productive discussion although I tried to start a productive discussion several times (the first time I tried was in March 2009).
It is obvious that you have no arguments to show, as you again did not send any single fact or argument. The fact that you send no arguments verifies that I am right. If you had any valid point, you could of course present your arguments.
What you send instead of useful arguments, is called Fear Uncertainty and Doubt. It is because of your unwillingness, that we cannot have a productive discussion. It is very unlikely that you did ever talk to a lawyer. If you did, you could use legal arguments. What you do is a very poor way of dealing with a OSS author that has been attacked by people who like to harm OSS.
BTW: If you behave this way because you are blackmailed by someone, please send me a private mail. I will see what I can do for you.
Jörg