On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 10:07:09PM +0100, Eduard Bloch wrote: > Hello debian-legal experts ;-), > I need a bit support to clarify the issue with cdrtools' build system. > Summary: a while ago, Joerg Schilling (upstream) replaced the copyright > headers in the files of his build system inside of the cdrtools package > with references to a CDDL license context. > In #350739, the reporter claims that we and JS are violating the GPL > because not all files required to create the executable work are > available under the GPL license. > CDDL is considered GPL-incompatible for linking with GPLed code. > Discussion with upstream in hope to make it double-licensed was not very > fruitfull. He defines his tarball as "medium" (in terms of our > DFSG!) where the two parts of the software (code and build system) are > allowed to coexist, and if we would not allow that, then we had prooved > that GPL violates the DFSG (because it infects other software on the > same "medium", hahaha). The GPL specifies: For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. This unambiguously includes the make scripts as part of the source for the work. Under the GPL, this means the make scripts must be distributable under the same terms as the work. Since they are not, we have no license to distribute this work in compiled form. It's perfectly valid for the copyright holder(s) of cdrtools to grant an exception to the GPL, exempting the build scripts from the GPL source requirements. That doesn't address the fact that some (myself included) think the CDDL is non-free on its own, though. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. vorlon@debian.org http://www.debian.org/
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