Comment 34 for bug 213215

Revision history for this message
Mantas Kriaučiūnas (mantas) wrote :

Hi Jörg Schilling,

I'd be very happy to see your original cdrtools software in Debian, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE and other free operating systems.
It seems this can be achieved very easily - you can simply add the thirty-nine words text in sources of some libraries from cdrtools package:
"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."

It's very easy to do and cost nothing :)

Jörg, please, give the 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.

Please, add this text even if you are 100% sure, that you don't *need* to grant the permission - all users of your original cdrtools software will be very happy if you add this text, because then your package will be included into OpenSUSE, Ubuntu and other Linux-based free OS, according to
https://features.opensuse.org/311186 and http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2011-02/msg00089.html

Jörg, please don't waste your time and don't argue with them even if they are not telling the truth - I've read yours answer (http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2011-02/msg00093.html ) and I agree with you, but you could show your generosity and simply give the permission as the relevant copyright holder on the CDDL's libraries.
Thank you very much for all your work and efforts.

I'm pasting some text from email above:
[..]
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."
[...]
Though Jörg continued to argue that he didn't *need* to grant the
permission, he never explained why, in the face of opposing legal
analysis on behalf of the copyright holders of mkisofs he didn't
*want* to grant a harmless permission that would allow his work to be
included in Canonical's Ubuntu distributions. After weeks of
discussion and many hours of my time and the time of my associate
Aaron Williamson, Mark Shuttleworth decided there was no point in
further fruitless negotiation and I agreed.