In the future freedb2.org will be importing and merging the data from a number of sources such as MusicBrainz and, as the resources become available, making all that information accessible in real-time via RSS feeds and the like.
The trouble with freedb is that it never has been free enough and I am working hard to try to change that.
I doubt that they got it for free. I would be pleased to be corrected on this, however it seems that although freedb.org reaped a considerable amount of money from the advertising on the old site, the funds were all used by Michael Kaiser for his own purposes, even though he never did any of the substantial amount of work that was involved. That was all done by Joerg Hevers and Ari Sundholm. I was involved in the project for 12 months before Michael ever put in an appearance and even then it was only when he smelled money.
Once again I would like to set the record straight. http://freedb2.org/ was written from scratch by myself with no reference to any of the original freedb code whatsoever, and I am the sole copyright owner on all of that code. It was derived strictly from the published cddb specifications and the contents of the database itself. You are right in thinking that there was much more going on that was publicly stated.
http://freedb2.org/ continues to thrive and grow and has been very well supported. I would like to thank everybody for that, and can guarantee that you will be able to enjoy the superior levels of service offered by freedb2.org for a long time to come. Please feel free to email me directly should you have any specific questions about it.
I've been writing up my robotics story on my website at http://asmith.id.au/robotics.html and publishing as much practical information about it as possible. I guess it works because this morning I received an invitation to apply for a robotics research position at a prominent university on the strength of the content of my website.
For a simple, fast and powerful alternative web technology that leverages PostgreSQL's innate technological superiority, please have a look at http://asmith.id.au/mod_libpq.html Put simply, this apache module allows you to bypass all the middleware baggage and build your web applications directly in your PostgreSQL database yielding tremendous advantages in speed and robustness. One well known example of this technology in action is http://freedb2.org/
The problem is that according to opinions I've been given, the GPL never could be applied to the particular case of the freedb data owing to the nature of it. That would mean that people have been submitting data for six years in the mistaken belief that their efforts were being protected from the big bad corporations somehow. If freedb.org has been a big fat lie all this time, wouldn't it be nice to clear that up?
BTW Don't confuse the freedb data with the freedb server software. They are different animals and there is no doubt that the server software is protected by the GPL. As for freedb2, I've been writing that myself from scratch since December 2004 and it has nothing to do with the original GPL'd freedb server software, and never did. I'll be releasing the rest of it under the new BSD licence when it is ready. The most important bits were already released quite a while ago.
The original question was put to slashdot a couple of weeks ago and in the interests of openness I mentioned the website in my submission. The slashdot editors quite wisely held the article for two weeks and have now posted it with all references to my controversial domain removed. Now thanks to you, I just got more advertising on slashdot.
For what it's worth I'm maintaining a news page on the site which shall not be named, and if you have a genuine interest in what is going on, please read that or contact me directly.
"However the discid calculated by the freedb software, which is the core of the database (you can't match the disc with the right description without it) has a value-added and is specific to the database."
In a properly designed database such as the one that I have built, the discid is completely redundant. Discs are matched to textual data in the database using the track offsets expressed as frames. The discid in combination with the category is merely a temporary surrogate key which is used only for the duration of the query. It would be much better served by a unique serial number and that is how future versions of the protocol will be designed.
topham, I've been reading through your comments both here, and in the original article two weeks ago, and I have to say that you have been extremely perceptive. You have said some things that I would not have said publicly, if only out of consideration for the past caretakers of the freedb data. For my part, I am trying to do what is right for the people who use freedb (or whatever it becomes) and for the people who have contributed to it over the years. Just what is "right" isn't so easy to determine as it turns out, hence posing the question to slashdot.
Re:freedb2.org compatibility
on
Freedb.org Ending
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Accepted money? Hell no. I've spent 6 months full-time out of the last 19 months, and most of what little money I had, to develop freedb2.org. The fact is I've had very little useful support from anyone and one hell of a lot of obstruction.
The so-called freedb team has always been incompetent and dysfunctional and I have made it my mission to fix that. Kaiser and Hevers have behaved like a pair of spoiled brats from beginning to end and now you see the result of that splashed all over the internet.
Whatever freedb2 ends up becoming I can guarantee you that it will be even more free than freedb.org. Please see http://freedb2.org/news.html for the specifics on that.
Re:freedb2.org compatibility
on
Freedb.org Ending
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Would you mind emailing the details to me at the address on the site please? That is undoubtedly a bug which needs to be fixed.
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.
I would have thought it was bleeding obvious. The shiniest known object in the solar system... inexplicable heat venting from the south polar region... strange elements and compounds in an atmosphere that shouldn't even be there, and so perfectly spherical. It's got to be the interstellar ark that brought us here.
Once we finish rendering the Earth uninhabitable, the crew will wake up and carry us all to the next planet that we are destined to trash.
Slashdot Mirror
Grip runs great with http://freedb2.org/
In the future freedb2.org will be importing and merging the data from a number of sources such as MusicBrainz and, as the resources become available, making all that information accessible in real-time via RSS feeds and the like.
The trouble with freedb is that it never has been free enough and I am working hard to try to change that.
I doubt that they got it for free. I would be pleased to be corrected on this, however it seems that although freedb.org reaped a considerable amount of money from the advertising on the old site, the funds were all used by Michael Kaiser for his own purposes, even though he never did any of the substantial amount of work that was involved. That was all done by Joerg Hevers and Ari Sundholm. I was involved in the project for 12 months before Michael ever put in an appearance and even then it was only when he smelled money.
Once again I would like to set the record straight. http://freedb2.org/ was written from scratch by myself with no reference to any of the original freedb code whatsoever, and I am the sole copyright owner on all of that code. It was derived strictly from the published cddb specifications and the contents of the database itself. You are right in thinking that there was much more going on that was publicly stated.
http://freedb2.org/ continues to thrive and grow and has been very well supported. I would like to thank everybody for that, and can guarantee that you will be able to enjoy the superior levels of service offered by freedb2.org for a long time to come. Please feel free to email me directly should you have any specific questions about it.
I've been writing up my robotics story on my website at http://asmith.id.au/robotics.html and publishing as much practical information about it as possible. I guess it works because this morning I received an invitation to apply for a robotics research position at a prominent university on the strength of the content of my website.
For a simple, fast and powerful alternative web technology that leverages PostgreSQL's innate technological superiority, please have a look at http://asmith.id.au/mod_libpq.html Put simply, this apache module allows you to bypass all the middleware baggage and build your web applications directly in your PostgreSQL database yielding tremendous advantages in speed and robustness. One well known example of this technology in action is http://freedb2.org/
The problem is that according to opinions I've been given, the GPL never could be applied to the particular case of the freedb data owing to the nature of it. That would mean that people have been submitting data for six years in the mistaken belief that their efforts were being protected from the big bad corporations somehow. If freedb.org has been a big fat lie all this time, wouldn't it be nice to clear that up?
BTW Don't confuse the freedb data with the freedb server software. They are different animals and there is no doubt that the server software is protected by the GPL. As for freedb2, I've been writing that myself from scratch since December 2004 and it has nothing to do with the original GPL'd freedb server software, and never did. I'll be releasing the rest of it under the new BSD licence when it is ready. The most important bits were already released quite a while ago.
The original question was put to slashdot a couple of weeks ago and in the interests of openness I mentioned the website in my submission. The slashdot editors quite wisely held the article for two weeks and have now posted it with all references to my controversial domain removed. Now thanks to you, I just got more advertising on slashdot.
For what it's worth I'm maintaining a news page on the site which shall not be named, and if you have a genuine interest in what is going on, please read that or contact me directly.
"However the discid calculated by the freedb software, which is the core of the database (you can't match the disc with the right description without it) has a value-added and is specific to the database."
In a properly designed database such as the one that I have built, the discid is completely redundant. Discs are matched to textual data in the database using the track offsets expressed as frames. The discid in combination with the category is merely a temporary surrogate key which is used only for the duration of the query. It would be much better served by a unique serial number and that is how future versions of the protocol will be designed.
topham, I've been reading through your comments both here, and in the original article two weeks ago, and I have to say that you have been extremely perceptive. You have said some things that I would not have said publicly, if only out of consideration for the past caretakers of the freedb data. For my part, I am trying to do what is right for the people who use freedb (or whatever it becomes) and for the people who have contributed to it over the years. Just what is "right" isn't so easy to determine as it turns out, hence posing the question to slashdot.
Accepted money? Hell no. I've spent 6 months full-time out of the last 19 months, and most of what little money I had, to develop freedb2.org. The fact is I've had very little useful support from anyone and one hell of a lot of obstruction.
The so-called freedb team has always been incompetent and dysfunctional and I have made it my mission to fix that. Kaiser and Hevers have behaved like a pair of spoiled brats from beginning to end and now you see the result of that splashed all over the internet.
Whatever freedb2 ends up becoming I can guarantee you that it will be even more free than freedb.org. Please see http://freedb2.org/news.html for the specifics on that.
Would you mind emailing the details to me at the address on the site please? That is undoubtedly a bug which needs to be fixed.
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
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.
and now new and improved freedb2.org
I think you've got something to hide.
I would have thought it was bleeding obvious. The shiniest known object in the solar system... inexplicable heat venting from the south polar region... strange elements and compounds in an atmosphere that shouldn't even be there, and so perfectly spherical. It's got to be the interstellar ark that brought us here. Once we finish rendering the Earth uninhabitable, the crew will wake up and carry us all to the next planet that we are destined to trash.