Re: cdrtools

[Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@gwolf.org>]

Joerg Schilling dijo [Thu, Aug 10, 2006 at 02:49:36PM +0200]:
> As I _did_ already receive coplaints against cdrecord that have been e.g. based
> on the fact that Linux distributoions change the name for the file 
> /etc/default/cdrercord and the fact that the basterdized behavior is 
> incompatible with the (officially) documented behavior, these Linux 
> distributions cause harm....
> 
> Free software gives you the right to change software but free software 
> definitely does _not_ give you the right to use the originam _name_ of the 
> software in case you apply incompatible changes or in case that you introduce 
> bugs. The license is related to "urheberrecht", using the original name 
> of the software is related to trade mark right....
> 
> If people at Denbian are missing this kind of basic knowledge, how
> would it be possible to discuss license issues in a serious way?

I am currently maintainer (co-maintainer for most of them) for 70
packages, most of them quite easy and low-maintenance. However, some
of them have patches, maybe adding a specific functionality the author
didn't want to include in his official version, maybe fixing some
idiosyncratic differencies (i.e. PDF::API2 comes to mind - It defines
sections in its documentation which don't cleanly map to what's used
in regular manpages, so I did the changes, but I must keep patching
the author's official module). You say that I don't have the right to
distribute this under the name PDF::API2 in Debian, do I understand
correctly? Please tell me: This module is a Perl library. If I modify
it to become PDF::API2::Debian, how will our users' code be portable?
How can other pieces of code link against this one and not be
Debian-specific? A compromise we have reached in some cases is to
change the _version_ number (i.e. in Mail::IMAPClient, where I had to
remove some non-free files from the distributed tarball) appending
'+deb' to it (so for us it's now 2.2.9+deb-4). It clearly shows it's
not the original author's code, but that the code _is_ contained.

Greetings,

-- 
Gunnar Wolf - gwolf@gwolf.org - (+52-55)5623-0154 / 1451-2244
PGP key 1024D/8BB527AF 2001-10-23
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