@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 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
