Re: Processed: Forwarding to the technical committee

[Ian Jackson <ian@davenant.greenend.org.uk>]

Steve, thanks for bringing this matter to our attention.  I've looked
at the bug log and a summary seems to be:

 * cdrtools's Makefiles as distributed by upstream (Joerg Schilling)
   do not have a GPL-compatible licence, although the rest of the
   code generally claims to be GPL'd
 * there is some argument by Joerg Schilling that this is somehow not
   incompatible with the rest of the code being GPL'd, perhaps under
   some peculiarities of German law
 * there are some other strangenesses of cdrtools's licensing

Although the maintainer of cdrtools is Joerg Jaspert, Steve McIntyre
and Eduard Bloch are listed in `Uploaders', and Steve made the last
three maintainer uploads.

So I think Steve means to pass this hot potato, which he thinks is his
decision, to the TC.  Note that Eduard has already said he doesn't
want to be involved any more, and Joerg Jaspert has not participated
in the extensive discussion.  Steve, am I right ?  Joerg, do you
object to the TC making this decision ?

On the merits, the correct course seems clear.  cdrtools should be
removed due for licensing problems at least until GPL-compatible
Makefiles can be provided.

Ian.