legacy/libburn/trunk/README

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                              libburnia-project.org
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This all is under GPL.
(See GPL reference, our clarification and commitment at the end of this text)
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libburnia-project.org
By Mario Danic <mario.danic@gmail.com> and Thomas Schmitt <scdbackup@gmx.net>
Copyright (C) 2006-2008 Mario Danic, Thomas Schmitt

Still containing parts of
Libburn. By Derek Foreman <derek@signalmarketing.com> and
            Ben Jansens <xor@orodu.net>
Copyright (C) 2002-2006  Derek Foreman and Ben Jansens
These parts are to be replaced by own code of above libburnia-project.org
copyright holders and then libburnia-project.org is to be their sole copyright.
This is done to achieve the right to issue the clarification and the
commitment as written at the end of this text.
The rights and merits of the Libburn-copyright holders Derek Foreman and
Ben Jansens will be duely respected. 

This libburnia-project.org toplevel README (C) 2006-2008 Thomas Schmitt 
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                           Build and Installation

Our build system is based on autotools. For preparing the build of a SVN 
snapshot you will need autotools of at least version 1.7. 
Check out from SVN by
   svn co http://svn.libburnia-project.org/libburn/trunk libburn
go into directory libburn and apply autotools by
   ./bootstrap

Alternatively you may unpack a release tarball for which you do not need
autotools installed.

To build a libburnia-project.org subproject it should be sufficient to go
into its toplevel directory (here: "libburn") and execute
   ./configure --prefix=/usr
   make

To make the libraries accessible for running resp. developing applications 
   make install


The other half of the project, libisofs, is hosted in the libburnia SVN, too:
   svn co http://svn.libburnia-project.org/libisofs/trunk libisofs
See README file there.


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                        Overview of libburnia-project.org

libburnia-project.org is an open-source software project for reading, mastering
and writing optical discs.
For now this means only CD media and all single layer DVD media except DVD+R.

The project comprises of several more or less interdependent parts which
together strive to be a usable foundation for application development.
These are libraries, language bindings, and middleware binaries which emulate
classical (and valuable) Linux tools.

Our scope is currently Linux 2.4 and 2.6 only. For ports to other systems
we would need : login on a development machine resp. a live OS on CD or DVD,
advise from a system person about the equivalent of Linux sg or FreeBSD CAM,
volunteers for testing of realistic use cases.

We have a workable code base for burning CD and most single layer DVD.
The burn API is quite comprehensively documented and can be used to build a
presentable application.
We have a functional binary which emulates parts of cdrecord in order to
prove that usability, and in order to allow you to explore libburnia's scope
by help of existing cdrecord frontends.

The project components (list subject to growth, hopefully):

- libburn  is the library by which preformatted data get onto optical media.
           It uses either /dev/sgN (e.g. on kernel 2.4 with ide-scsi) or
           /dev/hdX (e.g. on kernel 2.6).
           libburn is the foundation of our cdrecord emulation. Its code is
           independent of cdrecord. Its DVD capabilities are learned from
           studying the code of dvd+rw-tools and MMC-5 specs. No code but only
           the pure SCSI knowledge has been taken from dvd+rw-tools, though.

- libisofs is the library to pack up hard disk files and directories into a
           ISO 9660 disk image. This may then be brought to media via libburn.
           libisofs is to be the foundation of our upcoming mkisofs emulation.

- cdrskin  is a limited cdrecord compatibility wrapper for libburn.
           Cdrecord is a powerful GPL'ed burn program included in Joerg
           Schilling's cdrtools. cdrskin strives to be a second source for
           the services traditionally provided by cdrecord. Additionally it
           provides libburn's DVD capabilities, where only -sao is compatible
           with cdrecord.
           cdrskin does not contain any bytes copied from cdrecord's sources.
           Many bytes have been copied from the message output of cdrecord
           runs, though.
           See cdrskin/README and man cdrskin/cdrskin.1 for more.

- test     is a collection of application gestures and examples given by the
           authors of the library features. The main API example for libburn
           is test/libburner.c .
           Explore these examples if you look for inspiration.

We plan to be a responsive upstream. Bear with us. We are still practicing.


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Project history as far as known to me:

- Founded in 2002 as it seems. See mailing list archives
     http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libburn/
  The site of this founder team is reachable and offers download of a
  (somewhat outdated) tarball and from CVS :
     http://icculus.org/burn/
  Copyright holders and most probably founders:
  Derek Foreman and Ben Jansens.

- I came to using libburn in 2005. Founded the cdrskin project and submitted
  necessary patches which were accepted or implemented better. Except one
  remaining patch which prevented cdrskin from using vanilla libburn from CVS.
  The cdrskin project site is reachable and offers download of the heavily
  patched (elsewise outdated) tarball under the name  cdrskin-0.1.2  :
     http://scdbackup.sourceforge.net/cdrskin_eng.html
  It has meanwhile moved to use vanilla libburn.pykix.org , though.
  Version 0.1.4 constitutes the first release of this kind.

- In July 2006 our team mate Mario Danic announced a revival of libburn
  which by about nearly everybody else was perceived as unfriendly fork.
  Derek Foreman four days later posted a message which expressed his
  discontent.
  The situation first caused me to publically regret it and then - after i
  got the opportunity to move in with cdrskin - gave me true reason to
  personally apologize to Derek Foreman, Ben Jansens and the contibutors at 
  icculus.org/burn. Posted to both projects:
    http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libburn/2006-August/000446.html
    http://mailman-mail1.webfaction.com/pipermail/libburn-hackers/2006-August/000024.html

- Mid August 2006 project cdrskin established a branch office in 
  libburn.pykix.org so that all maintainers of our tools have one single place
  to get the current (at least slightely) usable coordinated versions of
  everything.
  Project cdrskin will live forth independendly for a while but it is committed
  to stay in sync with libburn.pykix.org (or some successor, if ever).
  cdrskin is also committed to support  icculus.org/burn  if the pending fork
  is made reality by content changes in that project. It will cease to maintain
  a patched version of  icculus.org/burn  though. Precondition for a new
  release of cdrskin on base of  icculus.org/burn  would be the pending
  "whitelist patch" therefore.
  I would rather prefer if both projects find consense and merge, or at least
  cooperate. I have not given up hope totally, yet.
  I, personally, will honor any approach.

- 2nd September 2006 the decision is made to strive for a consolidation of
  copyright and a commitment to GPL in a reasonable and open minded way.
  This is to avoid long term problems with code of unknown origin and
  with finding consense among the not so clearly defined group of copyright
  claimers and -holders.
  libisofs is already claimed sole copyright Mario Danic.
  cdrskin and libburner are already claimed sole copyright Thomas Schmitt.
  Rewrites of other components will follow and concluded by claiming full
  copyright within the group of libburn.pykix.org-copyright holders.

- 16th September 2006 feature freeze for release of libburn-0.2.2 .

- 20th September 2006 release of libburn-0.2.2 .

- 26th October 2006 feature freeze for cdrskin-0.2.4 based on libburn-0.2.3 .
  This version of cdrskin is much more cdrecord compatible in repect
  to drive addressing and audio features.

- 30th October 2006 release of cdrskin-0.2.4 .

- 13th November 2006 splitting releases of libburn+cdrskin from libisofs.

- 24th November 2006 release of libburn-0.2.6 and cdrskin-0.2.6 . cdrskin has
  become suitable for unaware frontends as long as they perform only the core 
  of cdrecord use cases (including open-ended input streams, audio, and
  multi-session).

- 28th November 2006 the umbrella project which encloses both, libisofs and
  libburn, is now called libburnia. For the origin of this name, see 
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liburnians .

- 16th January 2007 release of libburn-0.3.0 and cdrskin-0.3.0 . Now the scope
  is widened to a first class of DVD media: overwriteable single layer types
  DVD-RAM, DVD+RW, DVD-RW. This is not a cdrecord emulation but rather inspired
  by dvd+rw-tools' "poor man" writing facility for this class of media.
  Taking a bow towards Andy Polyakov.

- 11th February 2007 version 0.3.2 covers sequential DVD-RW and DVD-R with
  multi-session and with DAO.

- 12th March 2007 version 0.3.4 supports DVD+R and thus covers all single layer
  DVD media. Code for double layer DVD+/-R is implemented but awaits a tester
  yet.

- 23th April 2007 version 0.3.6 follows the unanimous opinion of Linux kernel
  people that one should not use /dev/sg on kernel 2.6.

- 31st July 2007 version 0.3.8 marks the first anniversary of libburn revival.
  We look back on improved stability, a substantially extended list of media
  and write modes, and better protection against typical user mishaps.

- 24th October 2007 version 0.4.0 is the foundation of new library libisoburn
  and an upcomming integrated application for manipulating and writing
  ISO 9660 + Rock Ridge images. cdrskin-0.4.0 got capabilities like growisofs
  by these enhancements: growing of overwriteable media and disk files.
  Taking again a bow towards Andy Polyakov.

- 26th Januar 2008 version 0.4.2 rectifies the version numbering so that we
  reliably release libburn.so.4 as should have been done since libburn-0.3.2.
  cdrskin now is by default linked dynamically and does a runtime check
  to ensure not to be started with a libburn which is older than itself.

- 3rd Feb 2008 libisofs-0.2.x (.so.5) has been deprecated and is temporarily
  replaced by libisofs-0.6.1 (.so.6) which for now only gives a guarantee on
  its set of version assertion features. The replacement will be made permanent
  by release of libisofs-0.6.2 (.so.6) which will guarantee future
  ABI compatibility for its whole feature set.


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    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. To be exact: version 2 of that License.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
    Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA

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Clarification in my name and in the name of Mario Danic, upcoming copyright
holders on toplevel of libburnia. To be fully in effect after the remaining
other copyrighted code has been replaced by ours and by copyright-free
contributions of our friends:
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We, the copyright holders, agree on the interpretation that
dynamical linking of our libraries constitutes "use of" and
not "derivation from" our work in the sense of GPL, provided
those libraries are compiled from our unaltered code.

Thus you may link our libraries dynamically with applications
which are not under GPL. You may distribute our libraries and
application tools in binary form, if you fulfill the usual
condition of GPL to offer a copy of the source code -altered
or unaltered- under GPL.

We ask you politely to use our work in open source spirit
and with the due reference to the entire open source community.

If there should really arise the case where above clarification
does not suffice to fulfill a clear and neat request in open source
spirit that would otherwise be declined for mere formal reasons,
only in that case we will duely consider to issue a special license
covering only that special case.
It is the open source idea of responsible freedom which will be
decisive and you will have to prove that you exhausted all own
means to qualify for GPL.

For now we are firmly committed to maintain one single license: GPL.

signed: Mario Danic, Thomas Schmitt