Cdrtools
Encyclopedia
cdrtools is a collection of independent projects of free software
/open source computer programs, created by Jörg Schilling
and others under the GNU General Public License
(GPL).
The most important parts of the package are cdrecord, a console-based
burning program; cdda2wav, a CD audio ripper that uses libparanoia; and mkisofs, a CD filesystem image creator. Because these tools don't include any GUI
, many graphical front-ends have been created (see Software that can use cdrtools section).
(GPL).
In versions starting with 2.01.01a09, most code from cdrtools has been relicensed under the CDDL
, which the Free Software Foundation
considers incompatible
with the GNU General Public License
(GPL), while other parts, such as mkisofs, are still licensed under the GPL
. Jonathan Corbet, founder of the LWN.net
news source argued this change makes it impossible to legally distribute cdrtools binaries.
However several lawyers have argued that combinations with software under GPL and other different licenses usually are collective works, to which the rules in the GPL about derivative works may not apply.
Debian
, Red Hat
, and Mandriva
dropped the versions of cdrtools with CDDL code from their distributions. The Debian project created cdrkit
, a fork of cdrtools. In August 2008, Mark Shuttleworth
offered to ask the Software Freedom Law Center
for a legal opinion on whether cdrtools could be included in Ubuntu
, provided Schilling agreed to accept the opinion.
Since the licensing change, cdrtools added some bug fixes and new features, such as the ability to use UTF-8
with mkisofs, create multi extent files (> 4 GB) with mkisofs, create correct hard links with mkisofs, and write Blu-ray discs.
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
/open source computer programs, created by Jörg Schilling
Jörg Schilling
Jörg Schilling is a computer programmer who has worked extensively on compact disc burning software, the Solaris Operating System and the OpenSolaris project. He studied originally as an electrical engineer at the Technical University of Berlin...
and others under the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
(GPL).
The most important parts of the package are cdrecord, a console-based
Console
- Computing and video games :* System console, a physical device to operate a computer** Virtual console, a user interface for multiple computer consoles on one device** Command-line interface, the typical use of the computer console...
burning program; cdda2wav, a CD audio ripper that uses libparanoia; and mkisofs, a CD filesystem image creator. Because these tools don't include any GUI
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
, many graphical front-ends have been created (see Software that can use cdrtools section).
Features
The collection includes many features, such as:- creation of audio, data, and mixed (audio and data) CDs.
- burning CD-RCD-RA CD-R is a variation of the Compact Disc invented by Philips and Sony. CD-R is a Write Once Read Many optical medium, though the whole disk does not have to be entirely written in the same session....
, CD-RWCD-RWA CD-RW is a rewritable optical disc. It was introduced in 1997, and was known as "CD-Writable" during development. It was preceded by the CD-MO, which was never commercially released....
and DVD-RDVD-RDVD-R is a DVD recordable format. A DVD-R typically has a storage capacity of 4.71 GB. Pioneer has also developed an 8.5 GB dual layer version, DVD-R DL, which appeared on the market in 2005....
, DVD-RWDVD-RWA DVD-RW disc is a rewritable optical disc with equal storage capacity to a DVD-R, typically 4.7 GB. The format was developed by Pioneer in November 1999 and has been approved by the DVD Forum. The smaller Mini DVD-RW holds 1.46 GB, with a diameter of 8 cm.The primary advantage of DVD-RW over...
, DVD+RDVD+RDVD+R is part of optical disc recording technologies. It is a format for optical disc data storage that utilizes digital recording. It is similar to, but incompatible with, the older DVD-R standard...
and DVD+RWDVD+RWDVD+RW is a physical format for rewritable DVDs and can hold up to 4.7 GB. DVD+RW was created by the DVD+RW Alliance, an industry consortium of drive and disc manufacturers...
, both single and dual layer DVDs. - several burning modesOptical disc recording modesIn optical disc authoring, there are multiple modes for recording, including Disc-At-Once, Track-At-Once, and Session-At-Once.-CD Disc-At-Once:...
, such as Track-At-Once and Disc-At-Once - cue sheet based writing using the control file format from cdrwin including enhancements for ExactAudioCopy
- ability to process Blu-ray DiscBlu-ray DiscBlu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
s - understanding and exploitation of many vendor specific drive features.
Licensing
The project was originally licensed under the GNU General Public LicenseGNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
(GPL).
In versions starting with 2.01.01a09, most code from cdrtools has been relicensed under the CDDL
Common Development and Distribution License
Common Development and Distribution License is a free software license, produced by Sun Microsystems, based on the Mozilla Public License , version 1.1....
, which the Free Software Foundation
Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to create, distribute and modify computer software...
considers incompatible
License compatibility
License compatibility refers to the problem with licenses applied to works subject to copyright, particularly licenses of software packages, which can contain contradictory requirements, rendering it impossible to combine source code from such packages or content from such works in order to create...
with the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
(GPL), while other parts, such as mkisofs, are still licensed under the GPL
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
. Jonathan Corbet, founder of the LWN.net
LWN.net
LWN.net is a computing webzine with an emphasis on free software and software for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. It consists of a weekly issue, separate stories which are published most days, and threaded discussion attached to every story. Most news published daily are short...
news source argued this change makes it impossible to legally distribute cdrtools binaries.
However several lawyers have argued that combinations with software under GPL and other different licenses usually are collective works, to which the rules in the GPL about derivative works may not apply.
Debian
Debian
Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...
, Red Hat
Red Hat
Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....
, and Mandriva
Mandriva
Mandriva S.A. is a publicly traded Linux and open source software company with its headquarters in Paris, France and development center in Curitiba, Brazil. Mandriva, S.A...
dropped the versions of cdrtools with CDDL code from their distributions. The Debian project created cdrkit
Cdrkit
cdrkit is a collection of computer programs for CD and DVD authoring that work on Unix-like systems.cdrkit is released under the GNU General Public License version 2.ArchLinux, Fedora, Gentoo Linux, Mandriva Linux, openSUSE and Ubuntu all include cdrkit....
, a fork of cdrtools. In August 2008, Mark Shuttleworth
Mark Shuttleworth
Mark Richard Shuttleworth is a South African entrepreneur who was the second self-funded space tourist. Shuttleworth founded Canonical Ltd. and as of 2010, provides leadership for the Ubuntu operating system...
offered to ask the Software Freedom Law Center
Software Freedom Law Center
The Software Freedom Law Center is an organization that provides pro bono legal representation and related services to not-for-profit developers of free software/open source software. It was launched in February 2005 with Eben Moglen as Chairman. Initial funding of US$4 million was pledged by...
for a legal opinion on whether cdrtools could be included in Ubuntu
Ubuntu (operating system)
Ubuntu is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu...
, provided Schilling agreed to accept the opinion.
Since the licensing change, cdrtools added some bug fixes and new features, such as the ability to use UTF-8
UTF-8
UTF-8 is a multibyte character encoding for Unicode. Like UTF-16 and UTF-32, UTF-8 can represent every character in the Unicode character set. Unlike them, it is backward-compatible with ASCII and avoids the complications of endianness and byte order marks...
with mkisofs, create multi extent files (> 4 GB) with mkisofs, create correct hard links with mkisofs, and write Blu-ray discs.
Compatible operating systems
|
Mac OS X Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems... BeOS BeOS is an operating system for personal computers which began development by Be Inc. in 1991. It was first written to run on BeBox hardware. BeOS was optimized for digital media work and was written to take advantage of modern hardware facilities such as symmetric multiprocessing by utilizing... Haiku (operating system) Haiku is a free and open source operating system compatible with BeOS. Its development began in 2001, and the operating system became self-hosting in 2008, with the first alpha release in September 2009, the second in May 2010 and the third in June 2011.... |
Syllable (operating system) Syllable Desktop is a free and open source operating system for Pentium and compatible processors. Its purpose is to create an easy-to-use desktop operating system for the home and small office user... OpenVMS OpenVMS , previously known as VAX-11/VMS, VAX/VMS or VMS, is a computer server operating system that runs on VAX, Alpha and Itanium-based families of computers. Contrary to what its name suggests, OpenVMS is not open source software; however, the source listings are available for purchase... Windows 9x Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a series of Microsoft Windows computer operating systems produced since 1995, which were based on the original and later modified Windows 95 kernel... Windows NT Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement... OS/2 OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal... SCO OpenServer SCO OpenServer, previously SCO UNIX and SCO Open Desktop , is, misleadingly, a closed source version of the Unix computer operating system developed by Santa Cruz Operation and now maintained by the SCO Group.... UnixWare UnixWare is a Unix operating system maintained by The SCO Group . UnixWare is typically deployed as a server rather than desktop. Binary distributions of UnixWare are available for x86 architecture computers. It was originally released by Univel, a jointly owned venture of AT&T's Unix System... |
Software that can use cdrtools
- K3bK3bK3b is a CD and DVD authoring application by KDE for Unix-like computer operating systems. It provides a graphical user interface to perform most CD/DVD burning tasks like creating an Audio CD from a set of audio files or copying a CD/DVD, as well as more advanced tasks such as burning eMoviX...
- X-CD-RoastX-CD-RoastX-CD-Roast is a GTK+ front-end for cdrtools which provides a graphical user interface for CD authoring.X-CD-Roast runs on Linux and other Unix-like computer operating systems...
- InfraRecorderInfraRecorderInfraRecorder is an open source CD and DVD writing program for Microsoft Windows. First started by Christian Kindahl in the Google Summer of Code 2006, InfraRecorder uses the cdrtools software library to perform the actual burning....
- Graveman
- GnomeBakerGnomeBakerGnomeBaker is a free CD/DVD authoring application for Unix-like computer operating systems. It is based on GNOME desktop environment.- Features :...
- cdrtfe
- cdw