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Re: notable Debian contributions in 2006



On Sat, Mar 24, 2007 at 09:00:20PM +0100, Joerg Schilling wrote:
> Roberto C. Sánchez <roberto@connexer.com> wrote:
> 
> > > > I guess you missed Aurelien's mail [0]?  What about the other distros?
> > > 
> > > ???? Mail not addressed to me is send py people who are not interested
> > > in an answer from me.
> > > 
> > The Code of Conduct for the Debian lists indicates that CCs are to be
> > avoided unless explicitly requested.  Since you did not request one, I
> > imagine Aurelien did not send you one.  Of course, you are
> > participicating in list discussion and so should be subscribed to the
> > list.
> 
> If you like to ignore the nettiquette, this is your choice....
> The nettiquette requires not to remove recipients from a list.
> 
They are not my guidelines.  I imagine that the list guidelines and code
of conduct were thouroughly vetted.  However, I have not been around
long enough to know.  Perhaps someone who has been around longer can say
for sure.

> 
> > I do not know what relationship other distros have with you.  So if they
> > have or have not contacted you, I don't know.  Of course, you keep
> > making the claim that the fork is definitely worse than the original.
> > However, you haven't produced any actual evidence that such is the case.
> 
> I did but you ignore it... Let me give again some hints on problems with
> Mr. Blochs fork:
> 
> -	dozens of unfixed bugs in mkisofs.
> 
Right.  People keep asking you to specify *which* bugs.  You provided a
few: http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2007/03/msg02703.html

Eduard's response: http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2007/03/msg02863.html

So, it looks like in your entire list, the only one that might
legitimately be considered a problem is that Debian's cdrkit might not
work correctly with deeply nested directories.  That is out of your list
of 12 "charges" on which Debian's cdrkit has problems.  I'd say that
Debian is doing an excellent job then of fixing the problems.

> -	no useful DVD support.
> 
As Eduard pointed out in his response to your charges, this is not
really a problem.  Debian has other tools which support DVDs just fine.

> -	The tools do not work at all on Knoppix
> 
Exactly how is this Debian's problem?  I don't know how if at all
Knoppix modifies cdrkit, if at all.  However, I'd look at the Debian
version *in Debian* before making unbased charges against it.

> There are more
> 
Really?  Like what?

> > > Not a single mail from another distro has been send to me, so we may 
> > > safely asume that other distros have just been overpowered but not
> > > convinced by Mr. Bloch...
> > > 
> > Wow.  I am sure that Eduard would like to think that he holds so much
> > sway and power that he was able to cow Canonical *and* Novell into
> > including an "inferior" product into their distributions.  However, I
> > think that you are just making things up now.
> 
> Distros who did not ask me are obviously overpowered by Mr. Bloch because
> they did never try to find out whether his claims are correct.
> 
I find this really hard to believe.  Do you have any evidence of this?
Or is this another of your baseless claims?

> 
> > > > I would hardly call it misquoting:
> > > 
> > > [ missunderstood text removed, see my other mail ]
> > > 
> > I see.  So the opinions of Sun *and* the FSF on the GPL and CDDL are
> > misunderstood?  Who, pray tell, are we supposed to seek for a
> > non-misunderstood opinion?  Yourself?
> 
> Are you really unable to understand the problem?
> 
> It makes no sense to quote text that is not related to what's done inside
> cdrtools. If you like to be taken for serious, you should not quote text that
> only applies to non-GPL code that has been derived from GPLd code.
> 
Really?  I fail to see how it makes any difference if the GPL code
sprang out of nothing or was derived from some other code?  That is like
saying that GPL code that is someone's original creation is treated
differently than GPL code which is derived from the Public Domain.  How
can that be?

> 
> > > You did not provide anything relevent, sorry.
> > > 
> > Only because you choose to ignore it.
> 
> In contryry: I read it and commented it but you do not seem to understand
> licensing issues.
> 
I am struggling to see how the source of the derivation makes any
impact.  Either something is GPL or is not.  Either something is
GPL-compatible or it is not.

> > By the way, did you miss the whole XFree86/X.Org fiasco?  If you choose
> 
> You again demonstrate that you did missunderstood things.
> Xfree did get into problems because it changed it's license to something less
> free and completely unclear. Xorg did come up again because Sun did contribute
> more money and human resources to Xorg, starting a few weeks before the Xfree 
> desaster. 
> 
I don't buy it.  The license change to XFree86 was committed on 13
February 2004:

http://cvsweb.xfree86.org/cvsweb/xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/doc/sgml/LICENSE.sgml.diff?r1=1.23&r2=1.24&hideattic=0
http://www.mail-archive.com/cvs-commit@xfree86.org/msg03271.html

The X.Org Foundation was formed on 22 January 2004.  The XFree86
disaster started long before either of those events.

> cdrtools changed it's license to a more free that is approved and 
> accepted by the FROSS community and some Debian people did start an obscure 
> campagne basec on accusations only.
> 
Would those be the accusations that are also published on the FSF and
Sun websites (that the GPL and CDDL are not compatible)?

> > to change licenses (which you are more than free to do as the owner of
> > the code) to a license which the majority of your users see as
> > problematic (rightly or wrongly) you are asking for many of them to seek
> > an alternative.  It appears that is what has happened here.  Perhaps you
> > should have considered your choice more carefully.
> 
> The majority of the users do not care about licenses and a lot of people did 
> send congratulations for the more free license no in use.
> 
I'm sure that the majority of *end* users could not have cared one way
or another as to the license changes in XFree86.  However, in cases like
this it is not the *end* users who should worry you.  The distribution
maintainers and packagers are also your users.  If they are not happy,
they are more than able to fork the code.  That is the beauty of Open
Source free software.  This is what happened with XFree86, with gcc and
it appears to be happening now with cdrecord.  Congratulations.

> 
> > > > So, in other words, you are not able to refute his claims?
> > > 
> > > There is no need to refute obviously wrong claims from Mr. Bloch. 
> >
> > Well, his claims are not so "obivously wrong" to quite a large number of
> > people.
> >
> > > If you believe his wrong claims, it seems that I cannot help you anyway.
> >
> > I believe his *technical* claims.  You have yet to make a *technical*
> > counter-claim.  However, you have engaged in quite a bit of vigorious
> > hand waving while *avoiding* technical arguments.
> 
> If you believe that he writes technical based claims, you seem to have problems
> with discussing things on a technical base.
> 
> 
> > > If you are openminded enough, you may try out e.g. the latest Knoppix DVD and
> > > discover that wodim and other libscg based programs published by Mr. Bloch
> > > simply do not work at all (I did try this at Cebit last week on my laptop).
> > > 
> > > The original cdrtoools however are known to work.
> > > 
> > I don't understand what you mean.  How could cdrkit or cdrtools or any
> > other burning application work with a disc already in the drive.  What
> > my real interest is where you think the problems are with the code.
> > Perhaps you could post a diff between your "superior" cdrtools and the
> > "inferior" cdrkit and describe where the problems *actually* are?
> 
> ???
> 
> It looks like you miss some basic knowledge on what cdrtools do and how they 
> are used.
> 
> Some people like to _read_ non-empty CDs/DVDs (either data or audio) and some
> people like to add new sessions multi session CDs/DVDs.
> 
> Let us continue this _after_ you started to understand the license related 
> topics and after you started to understand the technical base for CD/DVD 
> writing.
> 
I do understand the license issue.  It was all hashed out in
excruciating detail: http://bugs.debian.org/350739

Now, as far as I can tell, you seem to think that the build system for
your software is not part of the software.  The text of the GPL seems to
indicate otherwise.  See?  I understand.

Regards,

-Roberto

-- 
Roberto C. Sánchez
http://people.connexer.com/~roberto
http://www.connexer.com

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