Why is Fedora not a Free GNU/Linux distributions?

[Antonio Olivares]

> As it turns out, it appears that the conditions are
> contradictory:
> while they grant permissions for the individual components,
> some of
> the programs in there, taken as a whole (i.e., containing
> code under
> GPL and code under CDDL, including code from libraries the
> program
> contains), could only be distributed in violation of both
> licenses, so
> it couldn't be legally distributed.
Like I have said before, there are some distributions that do release cdrtools(original) and I have not heard that they have gotten in trouble :)

I will put a direct quote from the following page:

http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/linux-dist.html

<quote>
 The attacks have been based on the fact that cdrtools was licensed under the GPL. As a result, on May 15th 2006 most projects from the cdrtools project bundle have been relicensed under CDDL (giving more freedom to users than the GPL does). 
</quote>
I do not see Joerg suing anyone for using cdrtools.  If he does, then many people will start removing it.  
> 
> I can see why Debian (and anyone else) would object to
> distributing
> code under these conditions :-)
> 
> Now, IANAL and I haven't looked into the details, I
> draw my
> conclusions from the links you posted.
> 
> 
> Anyhow, even if this is not the exact situation, it appears
> that there
> may have been another component to the decision to fork. 
> Other issues
> than licensing are clearly visible in the discussion
> threads about the
> original package and GNU/Linux distributions.  This alone
> might have
> been enough to justify a fork, and the licensing change may
> have very
> well been just the event that got the trigger pulled.
I agree with this :)  IT must have been something else instead of the GPL or other excuse to pull the triger.  
> 
> -- 

Regards,

Antonio