Source: cdrkit
Version: 5:1.0~pre4-1
Severity: serious
The current license of cdrkit (which was recently forked from
cdrecord) seems to be GPLv2 + additional restrictions.
This kind of a license is self-contradictory because on the one hand
the copyright holder says that no further restrictions (beyond the
ones found in the GPL terms) can be imposed on recipients (see GPLv2,
section 6). On the other hand he himself adds such restrictions. As a
consequence, we probably end up not having a valid license. No license
implies "All Rights Reserved", that is to say, the package is not only
non-free, it's undistributable!
(This is allmost direct quote from a message[1] which discussed
another case of GPL + additional restrictions.)
As of 5:1.0~pre4-1 there seems to be 26 problematic files:
=== Files with an unmodifiable section ===
cdrecord/cdrecord.c
scgcheck/scgcheck.c
=== Files with other restriction(s) on modification ===
librscg/scsi-remote.c
libscg/scsi-aix.c
libscg/scsi-amigaos.c
libscg/scsi-apollo.c
libscg/scsi-beos.c
libscg/scsi-bsd-os.c
libscg/scsi-bsd.c
libscg/scsi-hpux.c
libscg/scsi-linux-ata.c
libscg/scsi-linux-pg.c
libscg/scsi-linux-sg.c
libscg/scsi-mac-iokit.c
libscg/scsi-next.c
libscg/scsi-openserver.c
libscg/scsi-os2.c
libscg/scsi-osf.c
libscg/scsi-qnx.c
libscg/scsi-sgi.c
libscg/scsi-sun.c
libscg/scsi-unixware.c
libscg/scsi-vms.c
libscg/scsi-wnt.c
libscg/scsihack.c
libscg/scsitransp.c
Those 2 unmodifiable sections are preceded by this comment:
/*
* Warning: you are not allowed to modify or to remove this
* version checking code!
*/
Other restrictions are similar to this example from libscg/scsi-linux-ata.c:
/*
* If you changed this source, you are not allowed to
* return "schily" for the SCG_AUTHOR request.
*/
case SCG_AUTHOR:
return (_scg_auth_cdrkit);
case SCG_SCCS_ID:
return (ata_sccsid);
There might be (at least) two possible ways to resolve this:
1) The restrictions are GPL-incompatible. However, according to a
message[2] on debian-legal, Joerg Schilling said that cdrecord (from
which the cdrkit was forked) was GPL, and so, if his public statement
controls, we can just remove the incompatible restrictions.
2) Otherwise we need to go back to code which doesn't contain such
restrictions.
It's also worth noting that:
since this fork was done with the intent of solving cdrtools
licensing issues, it is of capital importance that *all* licensing
issues are fixed, or otherwise the fork itself will be pointless.
(Quoted from a message[3] at debian-legal)
This issue is being discussed[4] on debian-legal.
There's also an earlier discussion[5] about GPL + additional restrictions.
[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/05/msg00309.html
[2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/09/msg00089.html
[3] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/09/msg00090.html
[4] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/09/msg00078.html
[5] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/05/msg00298.html
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