On Fri 21 March 2003 23:29, Joerg Schilling wrote: > From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fri Mar 21 22:32:42 2003 > > >> A much more realistic idea is why there is no source for > >> cdrecord-ProDVD: > >> > >> =09Commercial companies steel my work and sell it secretly. > > > >Two observations: > > > >1) Apparently, cdrecord doesn't fulfill the needs of a > > significant=20 group of potential users. Otherwise, there > > wouldn't be a market for=20 it. > > Calling bad guesses 'observations" does not help and does not > make me believe that you are really interested in the toic.:-( > > It is mere that _other_ CD/DVD writing programs (specially on > Win32) do not meet the needs of the customers so companies are > interested to use cdrecord as the base fro a new 'product'.
But why don't the users of those programs use cdrecord then? I mean if you say that it meets their needs... > In addittion, commercial companies have a high level of criminal > potential. If they like to create a product for several UNIX > platforms they may either pay > 50000 US $ per year to GEAR or > try to illegally use cdrecord. Agreed. > >2) Other FOSS projects (xvid comes to mind, see [1]) have=20 > >succesfully used publicising of infringements to get the > > violating=20 companies to comply with the license. It seems to > > be a very=20 succesful tactic so far, but cdrecord can't use it > > apparently. > > It is hard to go this way and gong the way described in the > attendum may not cause any change in behavior. You usually need > to sue the violaters and this is hard to do and you will need a > lot of money in advance. My point is that it usually does, and is a lot cheaper and simpler than a court case. See the examples. > >It seems to me that this is a symptom of the way cdrecord=20 > >development is done. cdrecord is open source (at least the > > CD-only=20 version), but its development is done in the > > classical cathedral=20 style. Open source isn't just about > > having the source available,=20 it's about open development, > > it's about having a community of=20 developers and users, and > > communication within that community.=20 > > I am sorry but it seems that you don't know what you are talking > about :-( > > Cdrecord development is open to anybody but few people like to > cooperate and have the neded skills. In order to cooperate, > people need to know how to deal with SCSI and how to write > portable programs. If people send me patches, they must make > sense and need to be of apropriate quality. It I receive a patch > that would cause me 1-4 weeks to integrate (mostly by a complete > rewrite) it may take a long long time until I have the needed > time for the rewrite. > > A constant cooperation is only present with Heiko (cdda2wav) and > James (mkisofs). Both send changes that only need minor ( << 5 %) > changes in order to get integrated. I would be happy if other > people would be willing to help.. But apparently they aren't. > >There is no such thing as a cdrecord development community. > > There is=20 no cdrecord-devel mailinglists where patches are > > sent to and=20 discussed, there is no cdrecord-users > > mailinglist where people can=20 get help from others in the > > community, and the developers (Joerg=20 Schilling mainly) are > > very closed when they answer email, never=20 explaining their > > answers. > > My answeres are as long as I have time. If people lik you and > others are not even willing to help replying to the incoming > mail, why do you like to make me believe that there is a > potential for coders? I'm willing to help replying to incoming mail. Most of the incoming mail seems to be sent to your email address only though, so I can't. For example, I replied to the "Linux cdrecord problem" thread of February 28 as I could answer that question to some extent. Problems reported with cdrecord seem often to be low-level problems which require intimate knowledge of SCSI and cd burning, partly because cdrecord basically dumps raw SCSI errors to the output in case of problems, so that a non-SCSI-expert doesn't have a clue as to what's going on. Unless questions are duplicated (which is hard to see unless you understand the problem to some extent) I can't help much with that. > In addition, there are frequent mail threads where people with > missing background knowledge on portability send rants about my > make system and portability guidelines. If people do not know how > to make things better, they should better be quiet instead of > sending destructive critics. If people disagree with you, you either shout them down or ignore them. Or at least that's the way it looks to me. Ofcourse the whole discussion on smake is a moot point since you're not going to use autotools and the rest of the world isn't going to use smake. With both sides dug in like that, arguing is a waste of time. > >Without infrastructure and some help understanding what's > > really=20 going on, no community will form. This means that > > cdrecord never=20 reaps the benefits of its being open source, > > and it leads to forks=20 and unhappiness between developers. A > > good example of that is the=20 latest developments in the > > XFree86 community (see [2]). Proof that=20 it can in fact work > > even for technically complicated projects is=20 provided by the > > Gatos project [3] which aims to create drivers for=20 capturing > > video using ATI cards, and has a nice and friendly=20 > > mailinglist where users and developers can discuss anything > > related=20 to the project). Another good example of the power > > of an active=20 community is the reaction of the CDex community > > on NeoAudio.=20 NeoAudio was a completely legal derived work, > > but it wasn't very=20 nice. Read for yourself at [4]). > > ???? Tell me about any fork from cdrtools! There is none ..... > except the joke from Mr. Rosenkranzer. Which is what I meant. Mr. Rosenkranzer's fork works for a certain group of people. They like it, and recommend it to others. And then you jump in and start your whole rant about how it sucks again. I understand that you think his fork sucks quality-wise, but why would you care if other people use it or not? If it makes them happy, does it matter? > >With all this and his bitter comments about not getting > > anything=20 back for cdrecord being open source on this list in > > mind, I think=20 it's Joerg who doesn't really understand open > > source. Or maybe he=20 > > It seems that you don't understand it :-( I am on open source > since 20 years and I spend a lot of time on my sources. Believe > me, would be happy about help! Ah, that explains. Once again we're talking about different things. Confusing it is, with all those ambiguous terms. The Open Source I'm referring to is the kind described by Eric S. Raymond in his 1997 article "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" [1]. Having the sources for a program available to the public is one thing, but it doesn't automatically mean it is developed Bazaar-style. For example, the BSDs and XFree86 have very closed, Cathedral-style development processes, even though the source is available. Linux seems to be far more popular amongst developers than the BSDs. > >does, but is just not half as good at managing a user community > > as=20 he is at writing code. A couple of messages ago (bit hard > > to follow=20 the thread since Joergs mail reader doesn't > > understand threading)=20 he asked for a better solution for the > > stealing of cdrecord source: "Give me a different _working_ way > > tp protect my code from being=20 abused by commercial companies > > and I would even publish source." > > > >Here's a way. It has proven itself to be succesful in a number > > of=20 situations. But it requires a change in the way > > cdrecord=20 development is managed and done, and users are > > treated. I'm not=20 saying it should be done, just giving an > > option. > > Well, first find poeple who are willing to cooperate. I foresee a chicken-and-egg problem here. > ... and before, people should try to learn that supporting > Cdrecord is not a 'cool job' but hard work. > > I just returned from a 8 day job at CeBIT: > > More than 4 days, I was geting in contact with new CD/DVD > manufacturers or doing conversation to stay in contact. Where do > you believe come the sample drives from? Where does the NDA free > information comes from? It took me a whole year to convince e.g. > Ricoh to give away the information for Just Link without forcing > me to sign a NDA. Believe me, working on Open Source is a lot > more than you seem to understand from it. Show me other open > source projects that work better! Do you think getting the information would be easier if you had a community of people sending email to the manufacturers inquiring about cdrecord support of their products? > Cdrdao does not support more than BurnProof. Check out how many > drive/vendor specific features cdrecord includes. BurnFree in all variants, Plextor VariRec, Yamaha AudioMaster and [EMAIL PROTECTED] Good work! > If you like to support cdrecord, you would need to be willing to > read thousands of pages of documentation and talk to many people; > otherwise you would just create a short living program but > nothing with the durability and quality of cdrecord. But if it gets the job done for some people now it's still useful, right? Lourens [1] http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ -- GPG public key: http://home.student.utwente.nl/l.e.veen/lourens.key -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
