The only code that probably could be called free was growisofs, but growisofs at that time was not under GPL (altough the Author claimed so) because commercial publishing was not allowed. Growisofs is now free, but the changeto a real free license was made after the complete cdrecord source was published under a free license.
dvd+rw-tools were available under same license, GPL, all along, and nothing has changed "after the complete cdrecord source was published under a free license." I suppose the above comment refers to http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/solaris.com.html. Quoting it:
"The agreement is not meant to encumber GPL-compliant usage of the sofware in question, for example no explicit permission/license is required, if the same party chooses to download and deploy it internally in their Solaris environment, e.g. for backup purposes, or even re-distribute it under GPL terms."
I can assure that this was the intention from the moment of agreement, to be specific the moment Solaris support made its appearance in dvd+rw-tools in 2003. The note was indeed updated/clarified in 2006, but once again it has nothing to do with any cdrecord time-frame. Well, it might have been affected *indirectly*, as those who asked for clarification at the time might have been confused by misleading claims just like one in the very beginning of this message. A.