Marko Vojinovic vvmarko@gmail.com wrote:
But as far as my memory serves, the issue was not that cdrtools were GPL, but that the toolchain for building cdrtools source (was that called "schilly-tools"?) was non-GPL. And the dispute was about the interpretation of the GPL --- does it require you to license the whole build-toolchain as GPL if cdrtools are GPL, or does it not require you to do so. And that was where things regarding GPL interpretations got complicated, and all that ugly story with Debian folks that followed.
Correct, Eduard Bloch (a hostile packager) came first up with personal insults and later created a red herring and turned these insults into a so called license dispute.
This was an attack based on the wrong interpretations of the GPL you repeated above.
The GPL is very clear about the fact that the build system is not an integral part of the work and that it may be licensed under _any_ license - it just needs to be included.
The false interpretation of the GPL in order to attack projects is partucularly problematic as one month before, a book on the GPL was published by Till Jaeger et al (most well known pro GPL lawyers) and that book of course explains the correct interpretation of the GPL. See:
http://www.osscc.net/de/gplger.html#gpl-complete-source
It is a pitty that after Debian turned into a hostile distro other Linux distros followed the false claims from Debian instead of asking specialized lawyers.
Jörg