On Wednesday 01 September 2004 9:26 pm, Paul wrote:
Hi Wayne
Being involved several GPL projects (two as project leader), I fully understand Jorg's viewpoint. To have to fix a problem of your own making is bad enough, but when someone else screws things up and others give you the flack...
I guess that I am not seeing this from a developers perspective, but why would he have licensed his software under the GPL if he didn't want others to be able to make modifications without his approval ?
Maybe it has more to do with the non GPL, DVD enabled version of cdrecord that he also offers ? Have SuSE stepped on his feet somewhat by offering functionality in the open version of cdrecord that he only offers in the closed version ?
Do Linux Distributors NEED to be able to modify the packages they provide ?, if they can't then surely the only thing that is going to differentiate them in the marketplace is the installer and the default package list.
Based on the assumptio that Jorg is the copyright holder on cdrecord, then he is within his rights to restrict the use of the package name.. However, the code appears to based on another work, so somehow, I doubt if his claims are enforcable.. (b.i.a.n.a.l.)
What I don't want to see is a situation where there are a million different names for package x depending on who was the last person to modify it. If that were the case then you would have to use cdrecord if you downloaded it from Jorg, RedHot CD toaster if it came with Red Hat, YaBA if you had SuSE and so on.
As long as those Distributors take ownership of the support of those packages they modify, or at least state somewhere in a very clear manner that the original authors should not be bugged as the provider has performed modifications, then all should be well...shouldn't it ?