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Freedb.org Ending

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the this-too dept.

haroldag writes "Freedb, the free music database used by tons of CD ripping software, has been shut down due to a disagreement among its developers. One of its developers used a data dump from the original freedb.org and is providing the service at freedb2.org, though, and will be adding features and posting them at his site as they become available. Unfortunately, a database dump or source code for freedb2.org is yet nowhere to be found."

10 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. Damn. by bcat24 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That sucks. I hope that freedb2 will be compatable with the old freedb protocol. Pretty much every open source tagger/ripper/whatever I know of uses freedb.

    Then again, maybe it's time for MusicBrainz to take over. :)

  2. good database, but could have been so much more. by CaptainCheese · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm sorry the staff fell out, costing us access to a useful resource. freedb was a useful tool but it was always in need of improvement.

    It really should have had facilities for submitting an md5 hash of the CD so end-users could avoid collisions, perhaps an easy way to edit or rate database entries, so that submissions where the track titles were wrong could be corrected by the community, etc...

    Hopefully whatever replaces it will be better and more robust..

    --
    -- .sigs are a waste of data...turn them off...
  3. "/." Schizm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ""Freedb, the free music database used by tons of CD ripping software, has been shut down due to a disagreement among its developers."

    And in other news. Slashdot has been shut down due to a disagreement between Taco and CowboyNeal. The former likes the new layout, while the latter hates it. Apparently one of the readers has mirrored a copy of the "/. database to slashdot2, which will be undergoing a year long "burning server" effect.

  4. freedb2.org compatibility by Horar · · Score: 5, Informative

    I am the author of freedb2.org. It currently supports a subset of the old freedb protocol, enough to rip your CD's. Just point your software at http://freedb2.org/~cddb/cddb.cgi. There are also some new features which I will be documenting shortly. For some source code and a development history, please see http://asmith.id.au/freedb.html and also http://asmith.id.au/mod_libpq.html.

  5. Re:So.... by bcat24 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The database is still there and lookups still work. For now at least.

  6. Time to replicate the database! by hernick · · Score: 5, Informative

    By the Power of BitTorrent, the freedb.org database is made available to all.

    Today, you can get the .torrent file on http://tracker.freedb.org/ - but if it ever becomes unavailable there, you can use a DHT-aware Bittorrent client such as Azureus and get it by using this info hash: 21AF020252FD2E556B683CEB123689733E0BC063

    I, for one, have allocated a total of 16mbps of bandwith on four hosts to help seed this database. I'm seeing a total swarm performance of around 25mbps, so this should be a fast download for anybody who wants it.

    Go ahead: feel the Power of BitTorrent and share this free database!

    Share, my friends, share!

  7. Re:I'd just like to say, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    Am I the only person who took the effort to do a bit of investigation? For instance, freedb:
    For almost two years now Ari and I have supported a developer from Australia, who was working on the next generation of the freedb server, which would have overcome most of our current technological problems and offered text searching. This was the biggest chance for freedb in years. Unfortunately there have been rising tensions in our team about the question, how long we should support a development project, which has not yet been made open source by the developer and which is not yet running on freedb servers. Last weekend the line was crossed by the founder of freedb, who owns the domain, when he took action against that developer without talking to the rest of the team first, while we were still trying to find a solution in everyone's interest.

    Grandparent's urls are Australian, he calls the project freedb2, and there's very little source code to be found: I'm guessing that he's this Australian.

    Now, don't get me wrong -- I have the utmost respect for people who donate their free time to making software for gratis, but when that developer pledges (of sorts) to make a replacement to an OSS product, gets support from the developers of the product being replaced (was that support monetary?), and refuses to free that code, which in turn contributes to toppling another (well known and widely depended on -- yes, I know freedb still works, but still) project, I am slightly angered, to say the least.

    And what stops him from now never opening that code? Replacing a FOSS product with simply a gratis product is a net loss, from where I'm standing.
  8. Re:I'd just like to say, by binkzz · · Score: 5, Informative

    He is the Aussie; from one of the original developers:

    "freedb2 is the development project that played a big role in the demise of freedb. That the developer is advertising it here now, apparently trying to profit from what he caused is immoral in my opinion.
    Additionally, using the name freedb2.org is stealing freedb's name. Furthermore horar has not yet released source code or a database dump, so as of this moment, freedb2 is a closed source project, which violates the GPL under which the database archives are released. Even if the GPL may not be enforceable in this case, not releasing a database dump is certainly morally wrong."

    --
    'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
  9. Re:Gullible? by Horar · · Score: 5, Informative

    I am both "the Australian guy" and the author and host of http://freedb2.org./ I sincerely hope that in future you will spend a bit more time joining the dots before jumping to such sensational conclusions.

    In the meantime, I invite you to enjoy http://freedb2.org/ and browse as much of the source code as I have had time to document and post on http://asmith.id.au/freedb.html and http://asmith.id.au/mod_libpq.html

  10. Re:I'd just like to say, by Anonumous+Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Please do your homework. The freedb database dump is released under the GPL with the following addendum:

    For purposes of interpreting the GPL in connection with this work: The
    database is distributed in the form of plain text files. These
    will generally be processed into to another form. The text form should
    be considered "source code" and the other form should be considered a
    "compiled program".

    This means, the moment you publish the database in any other format than a dump (e.g. through another front end), you must publish a dump of your own. If freedb2.org is using any part of freedb.org's database, it is currently infringing freedb.org's copyrights.