Summary

cdrtools package suspected not to be free

Type

Bug

Category

Main

Raised by

TWK

Date opened

2007–08–15

Description

The licence of the package does not allow us to modify location of one of the files included there. The reason is pretty strange, and states:

WARNING you are only allowed to change this filename if you also
change the documentation and add a statement that makes clear
where the official location of the file is why you did choose a
nonstandard location and that the nonstandard location only refers
to unofficial cdrecord versions.

I was forced to add this because some people change cdrecord without
rational reason and then publish the result. As those people
don’t contribute work and don’t give support, they are causing extra
work for me and this way slow down the cdrecord development.

In my opinion it violates Freedom 1 of the Free Software Definition, which states:

 The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (…).

Changing the location of the file may be needed for one, and if one is not allowed to do so, the software is not free for him/her.

Status

Closed

Importance

3

Target Release

deltad

Resolution

In an email from rms:

Someone pointed me at that issue.  Our policy is that such
requirements are not a problem.  You can close that ticket
and cite the FSF.

So this isn’t a problem. -bbrazil January 09, 2008, at 10:10 PM

Date closed

2008–01–09

Comments

Since cdrtools is source-package for packages cdrtools-doc, mkisofs, cdrecord and cdda2wav, maybe this bug should be merged with bug 31 which is about cdrecord licensing problems. (message @ gNS-users)

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