The value of middlemen

Posted Aug 12, 2004 15:52 UTC (Thu) by garloff (subscriber, #319)
Parent article: The value of middlemen

Mr. Schilling seems to disagree about the value of middlemen. He seems to have a special issue with SUSE, maybe because it was Jens being very patient trying to explain to him, why some of his statements do not really convince the community.

So he has added this GPL incompatible clause to 2.0a36:

 
/*   
 * You are not allowed to modify or remove the following code.   
 * I am sorry that I am forced to do things like this, but defective   
 * versions of cdrecord cause a lot of work load to me and it seems   
 * to be impossible to otherwise convince SuSE to cooperate.   
 * As people contact me and bother me with the related problems,   
 * it is obvious that SuSE is violating subsection 6 in the preamble of   
 * the GPL.   
 *   
 * Note that although the SuSE test is effective only for SuSE, the   
 * intention to have non bastardized versions out is not limited   
 * to SuSE. It is bad to see that in special in the "Linux" business,   
 * companies prefer a model with many proprietary differing programs   
 * instead of cooperating with the program authors.   
 */

I wonder whether he has the right to revoke the GPL license, though.

Does he own the complete copyrights for cdrecord? Did contributors assign the copyright to him? Or has nobody succeeded to work with him and sent him patches?

The value of middlemen

Posted Aug 12, 2004 16:34 UTC (Thu) by gerv (guest, #3376) [Link]

That clause makes the code it refers to non-free; this is an extra restriction which violates section 6 of the GPL. This has several ramifications:

1) When Jorg distributes the current version of cdrecord, he is violating the GPL license *on those parts he does not own the copyright on* - because the copyright holders of those parts have not given permission for their code to be linked with non-free code.

This would allow anyone with code in cdrecord to sue him for copyright infringement.

2) Anyone who receives the code receives it under two conflicting license provisions. That means, according to section 7 of the GPL, that they may not re-redistribute the code at all, because they cannot simultaneously satisfy the GPL and the other conditions (allow unlimited freedom to modify, and stop modification of that section.)

So any Linux distributor or other party distributing 2.0a36 or above is violating the GPL, and could be sued by copyright infringement by any contributor, including Jorg.

Gerv

The value of middlemen

Posted Aug 12, 2004 17:20 UTC (Thu) by gerv (guest, #3376) [Link] (2 responses)

BTW, thanks for the tip-off. I've blogged further about this.

Gerv

The value of middlemen

Posted Aug 12, 2004 22:29 UTC (Thu) by Soruk (guest, #2722) [Link] (1 responses)

You refer to "2.01a36" in your blog entry. Is this intentional?

The value of middlemen

Posted Aug 12, 2004 23:43 UTC (Thu) by gerv (guest, #3376) [Link]

Yep - according to ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/cdrecord/alpha/ , cdrtools-2.01a36 is the latest version. I compared it against 2.01a35 and noted that this comment had been added.

Gerv

The value of middlemen

Posted Aug 12, 2004 18:39 UTC (Thu) by oak (guest, #2786) [Link]

"wonder whether he has the right to revoke the GPL license, though"

At least he cannot say it's GPL anymore. GPL as license is copyrighted too, so that people cannot claim as GPL (+ modifications) something which doesn't anymore have the same intent as GPL...

The value of middlemen

Posted Aug 12, 2004 18:55 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] (2 responses)

At the beginning of the file (at least in a35), it says "This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version." As far as I can tell, this grants permission to redistribute it and/or modify it under the GPL, and contradictory comments elsewhere in the file are not actual license terms.

I find it odd that his claims about section 2c of the GPL are not, in fact, correct, though; he seems to think that if you distribute a modified version, you must include a notice that it is modified. In fact, you must include (2c) "an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty". If you don't claim copyright on your modifications, there's no way for an end user who doesn't read the (section 2a) "modified files" to tell that they have a modified version.

It seems to me that he would actually be perfectly happy if distros were actually really acting completely as middlemen; his issue is that users contact him when they have problems rather than contacting the distributors who could actually be helpful.

The value of middlemen

Posted Aug 12, 2004 19:32 UTC (Thu) by mongre26 (guest, #4224) [Link] (1 responses)

It is not Suse's fault that cdrecord users contact the author instead of him.

I dubious of Mr. Schilling's claim that Suse is in violation of the GPL as the result of the actions of users. Namely contacting Mr. Schilling. Particularly when the GPL itself says there is no warranty.

I have to investigate this more in depth, but I am gathering that there is more here than just people contacting Mr. Schilling for support for versions that are patched by Suse. More specifically that the distributors have had to apply patches (like DVD burning) to their cdrecord because the author has refused to do so himself.

Given it is mentioned in the article that Mr. Schilling actually sells a commercial Linux DVD burning tool based on cdrecord I see a definite conflict of interest here.

GPL and Open Source software is a two way street. Authors produce works, people write patches and submit them back. The system works best when there is two way movement of code. What it looks like from here is that Mr. Schilling has set up a roadblock and only allows those pieces of code to be applied to his version of cdrecord that do not conflict with the functionality of his commerical proprietary cdrecord version. What Mr. Schilling aparently did not realize is that Opensource has a way of routing around roadblocks and this is exactly what has happened with Suse and other distributors.

Since Mr. Schilling was not able to or willing to accept key patches from others to add DVD functionality, nor was he willing to add it himself distributors like Suse acted in a way that is not only acceptable, but is exactly how the GPL is intended to work. Suse modified and distributed their own non-warrantied version under the GPL with improved usability and functionality, or at least as far as they are concerned. Relative evaluations of whether Suse cdrecord is better than vanilla cdrecord is not relevant.

Mr. Schilling is trying to exert a level of control he does not have under the GPL and as someone said in an old movie I saw once "The more you tighten your grip... the more...will slip through your fingers.".

If Mr. Schilling really wants to he can make version 2.0a37 and place it under "All Rights Reserved". His contributions to cdrecord from the communities perspective will cease and the fork will be official.

Even without closing future cdrecord versions though Mr. Schilling has still put out notice that while he may say cdrecord is GPL it is only GPL on his terms. I think he needs to realize it does not work like that. The GPL gives rights to users that you do not usually see with most copyrighted works. That inevitably takes some rights away from authors. This is a key intent of GPL to give these rights to distributors and users, to ensure the software remains free.

Mr. Schillings addition certainly violates the spirit of the GPL, and if there is code in cdrecord he does not hold copyright on he may be violating the letter as well.

In any case I think it is prudent to assume that cdrecord 2.0a36 is not under any license for Mr. Schillings code and may have additional encumbrances. cdrecord 2.0a36 should be avoided.

The value of middlemen

Posted Aug 12, 2004 19:34 UTC (Thu) by mongre26 (guest, #4224) [Link]

Sorry iabervon I was not specifically replying to you, hit the wrong link.

The value of middlemen

Posted Aug 12, 2004 20:27 UTC (Thu) by droberge (guest, #10852) [Link] (5 responses)

It would appear that the text in the GPL that Mr. Schilling is referring to is:

Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors' reputations.

which is the sixth paragraph in the Preamble to the GPL.

It would appear that to some extent SUSE is in fact violating this, but it wouldn't actually be a violation of the GPL since the Preamble isn't actually prescriptive. (IANAL) I am not sure how one could completely comply with this without purging the original author's name from the program which is a clear GPL violation.

Notification of modification

Posted Aug 12, 2004 20:35 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (4 responses)

Don't know about the SUSE version, but Fedora's cdrecord starts by printing a four-line warning that the program has been modified and the original author should not be bothered. Seems like that should suffice.

Notification of modification

Posted Aug 12, 2004 22:39 UTC (Thu) by Soruk (guest, #2722) [Link]

The DVD patch I got from Florent (Warly) Villard's CDRtools DVD patch also puts up such a message. I have no problem with this - indeed it makes perfect sense.

Notification of modification

Posted Aug 13, 2004 0:34 UTC (Fri) by droberge (guest, #10852) [Link]

The version on my Debian system also displays such a notice; I guess I spoke in haste.

Notification of modification

Posted Aug 13, 2004 6:46 UTC (Fri) by garloff (subscriber, #319) [Link]

On my SUSE Linux 9.1:

garloff@tpkurt:~ [0]$ cdrecord --version cdrecord: Operation not permitted. WARNING: Cannot set RR-scheduler cdrecord: Permission denied. WARNING: Cannot set priority using setpriority(). cdrecord: WARNING: This causes a high risk for buffer underruns. Cdrecord-Clone-dvd 2.01a27 (i686-suse-linux) Copyright (C) 1995-2004 Jörg Schilling Note: This version is an unofficial (modified) version with DVD support Note: and therefore may have bugs that are not present in the original. Note: Please send bug reports or support requests to http://www.suse.de/feedback Note: The author of cdrecord should not be bothered with problems in this version.

That should be clear enough. And that notice has been put there to avoid conflicts with Mr. Schilling.
But apparently on some old release (on SL82?), there was no such clear warning. He complains about that, despite it's been fixed long since then. I wonder whether that's what really bothers him, though.

Notification of modification

Posted Aug 27, 2004 12:36 UTC (Fri) by sinnerbofh (guest, #24303) [Link]

Same kind of warning in MandrakeLinux 10.0:

$ cdrecord --version

Cdrecord-Clone 2.01a27-dvd (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2004 Jörg Schilling
Note: This version is an unofficial (modified) version with DVD support
Note: and therefore may have bugs that are not present in the original.
Note: Please send bug reports or support requests to <warly@mandrakesoft.com>.
Note: The author of cdrecord should not be bothered with problems in this version.

Salut,
Sinner

The value of middlemen

Posted Aug 13, 2004 6:52 UTC (Fri) by garloff (subscriber, #319) [Link]

> So he has added this GPL incompatible clause to 2.0a36:

2.01a36, sorry for being unprecise.

The value of middlemen

Posted Aug 19, 2004 2:45 UTC (Thu) by mbp (subscriber, #2737) [Link]

I don't think that implies a "revocation" -- that term means that you are no longer allowed to use or redistribute previously-obtained copies. The GPL wouldn't allow that except in particular circumstances.

What he may be doing here is refusing to licence future versions under the GPL. If he owns all the copyrights, then that is his right. Of course someone else can fork a previous version.