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Freedb.org Ending
Posted by
jamie
on Sun Jul 02, 2006 08:04 PM
from the this-too dept.
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."
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[+]
Ask Slashdot: Should freedb's Data Be Public Domain? 210 comments
Horar asks: "There's been a lot of recent fuss over freedb. My position is that freedb was just not free enough, and I would like to find a way to bring all the data into the public domain, just as MusicBrainz has done with much of their data. I had not thought that this would be possible until I received advice from various parties suggesting that it was. So now I ask Slashdot if this is true? Can the freedb data legally be brought into the public domain at this time, and if so how? Most importantly, would it be 'The Right Thing To Do'?"
[+]
Freedb.org Returns to Life 49 comments
Trogre writes "The recently troubled free CD database freedb has been picked up by a group called Magix. From Kaiser's blog: 'Following my announcement that I would like to let freedb go, I was approached by many interested parties ... Even if I shall no longer be actively associated with freedb, I shall continue casting a critical glance on freedb's future. The decision in favour of MAGIX has given us a new prospect of further development, offered a congenial and comfortable atmosphere during difficult negotiations, and provided the newly implemented hardware with generous capacities.' This might be good news since Grip still doesn't support MusicBrainz."
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Damn. (Score:5, Interesting)
Then again, maybe it's time for MusicBrainz [musicbrainz.org] to take over.
Re:Damn. (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Damn. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Damn. (Score:5, Funny)
Damn, I entered the code in your sig and my TV went blank.
Parent
freedb2.org compatibility (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:freedb2.org compatibility (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:freedb2.org compatibility (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Is it true that you accepted money (which is how I interpret "support") to do open source development and then did not release the code? I'd like to hear your side of the story.
Parent
Re:freedb2.org compatibility (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [freedb2.org] for the specifics on that.
Parent
Re:I'd just like to say, (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Parent
Re:I'd just like to say, (Score:5, Informative)
"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."
Parent
Re:I'd just like to say, (Score:4, Informative)
source of parent post: http://digg.com/software/freedb_s_future_uncertai
more comments on freedb: http://www.digg.com/linux_unix/freedb_is_closing_
at any rate, there seems to be more to horar's involvement than originally stated.
Parent
Re:I'd just like to say, (Score:5, Informative)
Please do your homework. The freedb database dump is released under the GPL with the following addendum:
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.
Parent
Re:I'd just like to say, (Score:4, Interesting)
Not sure how much I want to get into this discussion (I AM NOT A LAWYER) but...
Copyright is for creative works, not database collections of fact. While there have been countries making changes to allow for the copyright of databases (collection of facts), it is very much untested waters.
You'd need a lawyer to make a definitive decision (OBVIOUSLY), but it is quite likely that no licensing terms can be applied to the database files, or any derivative works thereof.
Parent
Re:I'd just like to say, (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling [cornell.edu]
I would think that the case would apply here.. since both the information in FreeDB's db, and the information in the phone book are just collections of public information.
Parent
Re:freedb2.org compatibility (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Damn. (Score:4, Insightful)
Damn is right.
Parent
Re:Damn. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, we all know that egotism would never play a part in any closed source project or company.
Parent
Re:Damn. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Damn. (Score:5, Interesting)
They are supposed to make sure a CEO's ego doesn't take precedence over the interests of shareholders, employees and other persons with an interest in the company's success. When the Board fails in this role, as at SCO, the consequences can be dire.
I seem to recall that the SCO Board was padded with Ralph Yarro and a Mormon cabal of Ray Noorda (founder of Canopy Group, SCO's largest shareholder) buddies. Yarro put McBride in the CEO's chair and his yes-men bought into their immensely stupid plan. The end result was millions squandered, an old UNIX brand absolutely destroyed forever, and worst of all, several suicides, including Ray Noorda's daughter. She had apparently engineered Yarro's ouster, which was followed by the mysterious settlement transferring all of Canopy's SCO shares to Yarro immediately before her suicide - I don't know if all of these events were ever adequately explained.
Truly one of the most sordid tech industry stories in years.
Parent
Free software for maintainance. (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's hope source code for freedb2.org and database dumps from freedb2.org are shared under a free software license so that if freedb2.org dies we're not left with nothing but an increasingly out-of-date freedb.org database and freedb.org software.
Thanks so much for all the work, freedb.org hackers. Your efforts are greatly appreciated.
Parent
good database, but could have been so much more. (Score:5, Insightful)
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..
Get what you paid for? (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems like there were three people on the project, and two of them wanted to take it non-free, one didn't; although I'm glad the remaining developer didn't go along with the other guys if they really wanted to make it non-free, I can't really understand why he would choose to just kill it outright rather than find people who were willing to maintain it, if nothing else.
I'm not sure whether this shows a shortcoming of the collaborative development model or not. It seems like it might be -- although I suppose projects managed by a "benevolent dictator" are also prone to shutting down if the person moves on / dies / whatever; however it seems like the a not insignificant number of projects that are run by teams without a clear leader close due to 'personality conflicts' over time.
On the other hand -- what is it with CD meta-databases and going non-free? Is it just that they seem like tempting revenue sources or what?
Parent
Re:Get what you paid for? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
"/." Schizm. (Score:5, Funny)
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.
have you got ... (Score:4, Funny)
Ahhh, those were the times (Score:4, Interesting)
I recorded some of my (difficult-to-find) LPs to
Note that even though I marked the beginning and end of each song manually, it still found the right titles. freedb really rocks!
Re:Ahhh, those were the times (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
A quick fix (Score:5, Informative)
Add to your hostfile:Ugly, but it might work.
Reasons for corporate setups (Score:4, Insightful)
I've used FreeDB for a while now with the CD ripping program I use (Goldwave, highly recommended), and it had its pros and cons.
On the plus side, I could find listings for more foreign/anime CDs than I could using CDDB (a corporate company, used by the likes of WinAmp and WMP, I believe).
On the minus side, there were a few moderately popular to very popular CDs that had no listing. Also, more than a few CDs (including the foreign CDs mentioned) had more than one listing, each with small differences (some with large differences, such as translated song titles, or even just misspelled words), so you had to go through each one to find one that suited you. (One might argue that the choice was good, but in this case it was just annoying.)
The reason that FreeDB stopped is because those in the lead couldn't come to a decision. This would almost never happen in a corporate environment. Any dispute would go up the chain until it hit the CEO or board of directors, where a firm decision one way or another would be made. In the mean time, the product would merely remain unchanged (unless company policy specifies otherwise), so there would be no interruption in service.
Had FreeDB used a similar hierarchy (which they may have had, but it just fell apart), this might have been avoided. The programmers/engineers would dispute something, and the project lead/lead engineer would hear both sides and say "This is this, and that's that."
Certainly, this will be an inconvenience to those who use programs that use FreeDB, but have no idea that the program does.
Re:Reasons for corporate setups (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you even read the postings by any of the involved parties? Nothing would have been different in a "corporate" environment. What basically happened is a CEO-equivalent (someone who had control over the physical assets) DID make a firm decision. Then two people quit because they disagreed with the decision. It turned out these two people were the keys to the continued operation and development of the organization, so it closed down after they left. What exactly about this situation couldn't have happened in a corporation? The real heart of the problem was that the organization was so small that certain individuals were irreplacable, so maybe you were just confusing "corporation" with "large operation."
Hierarchy does not prevent disagreement. If a disagreement is small enough that nobody is willing to quit over it, then hierarchy can make a decision that would otherwise bog them down in debate and waste time... but this was obviously not such a case.
Unlike you, I won't claim to know the reasons why this happened, since I don't have all the details. I will only lament the death of an extremely useful project, and thank everyone involved for all the time, work and money they put into it. We can only hope a similar (and similarly free and open) project can rise to take its place.
Parent
Re:Reasons for corporate setups (Score:4, Interesting)
If you don't see the difference, then just wait for CDDB to stop, and call me back.
Parent
Re:Reasons for corporate setups (Score:4, Insightful)
Good idea, I'll jump on my brand new Amiga and dial up Genie and Compuserve, download and buy a couple of those cool sidescrollers people call abandonware (ha!) and kill a few hours. When I'm done I think I'll upgrade my Windows 95 box with the latest patches after I buy the commercial version of Trumpet Winsock. When I'm done, I'll rip some CDs with the software that came with my CD ROM drive, and I'm sure there will be some online commercial CD database that has all the indie artists I like to listen to!
The reason that FreeDB stopped is because those in the lead couldn't come to a decision. This would almost never happen in a corporate environment. Any dispute would go up the chain until it hit the CEO or board of directors, where a firm decision one way or another would be made. In the mean time, the product would merely remain unchanged (unless company policy specifies otherwise), so there would be no interruption in service.
Half the time the firm corporate decision is to completely end a project and either auction all the IP off to some lawyer-filled clearinghouse or just let it rot until the backups are no good anymore. Corporations can die just as easily as open source projects too, but unfortunately their corpses aren't easily reanimated like the open projects.
Parent
Time to replicate the database! (Score:5, Informative)
Today, you can get the
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!
Gullible? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Well, if I'm reading between the lines correctly:
1) Ari and Joerg support some australian guy developing the "next-gen" freedb for two years
2) Australian guy doesn't want to release it as open/free for freedb (or all three?)
3) Ari and Joerg have either been suckers or part of an attempt at pulling another Gracenote
4) Kaiser won't play ball, it's freedb or no db at all. He finally tires and goes to the source.
5) The play is called, Ari and Joerg leave because the gig is up.
To put it this way, I would not be surprised to see another CD database show up soon, lead by an australian and maybe with a few more anonymous employees. Either that, or they're been really gullible. Never ever trust someone who says they'll open source it "soon". If that is their true intention, they would have no problem being open about it all the way. The only reason not to is when you're pulling a bait-n-switch like here. It seems clear to me that they expected it to be open source ("not yet open source", Joerg), it wasn't ("did not seem to be kept free", Kaiser) and that tore them apart.
Re:Gullible? (Score:5, Informative)
In the meantime, I invite you to enjoy http://freedb2.org/ [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 [asmith.id.au] and http://asmith.id.au/mod_libpq.html [asmith.id.au]
Parent
Re:Gullible? (Score:5, Insightful)
In the world of litigation we live in, it's all or nothing. Keeping even a single bit to your chest gives you the munitions to go after others, and prevents them from legally creating a derivative.
That you're going to release it to the public "Real Soon Now" just doesn't cut it -- it either is or it isn't, and those of us who remember GIF, RSA, JPEG and others will treat this as "isn't". This isn't paranoia -- it's experience.
--
*Art
Parent
Re:Gullible? (Score:4, Insightful)
If I take some GPL code, I can make any changes I want to it and no one can force me to distribute the source. (As long as I do not attempt to distribute/sell the binaries, of course). If Andrew (or whatever his name is) hasn't attempted to distribute binaries that contain GPL code (and I'm not sure we know that he has for a fact), then we need to back the fuck up.
Parent
Re:Gullible? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Gullible? (Score:4, Insightful)
The GPL does not allow you to wait until the code is polished and documented to distribute it. If there are users, they must have access to the code, in whatever state it's in. Post a tarball now, and post a revision when you're done documenting it. Anything else is criminal.
Parent
Maybe move it to Wikipedia (Score:5, Interesting)
Wikipedia is busily replicating GraceNote and IMDB, by hand, and not too well. They're using a wiki to do the job of a database. Some music types from Wikipedia should take this database and the data in Wikipedia and make something useful out of it.
Personally, I think that Wikipedia needs something like "Wikipedia Music and Movies", to which all content associated with music, movies, TV, and the people involved in the industry would be moved. More structured than Wikipedia Encyclopedia, Music and Movies would have standard database formats and slots for music and movies, indexed so that you could see all movies by some director or all songs by some musician. Wikipedia can't do that, but IMDB can.
Then Wikipedia needs "Wikipedia Atlas", a map-based system, for all those "State Route 93" entries. Wikipedia isn't spatial, and space is what keeps everything from being in the same place. An atlas system would be able to handle an endless number of "my favorite restaurant" articles. Wikipedia Travel already has something like this.
With that out of the way, Wikipedia would become more like an encyclopedia. Right now, it's drowning under the incoming cruft.
Re:Nothing to see? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Good riddance (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good riddance (Score:5, Interesting)
Not so, well, not really. If you used it as a starting point, and checked the entries against the CD you were ripping then by and large the entries were really good. (Some freaky choices in categories sometimes)
Where there were issues, it was far easier to quickly edit one or two entries or the artist name etc. rather than type the whole thing in.
It is/was a great service.
Parent
Re:Good riddance (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Good riddance (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:no honor amongst theives (Score:3, Informative)
Without the CD, the service is/was completely useless.
Re:no honor amongst theives (Score:4, Informative)
I rip my own CDs. Mostly because I like the convenience of listening to them on my laptop. Even here in Australia that is now legal, though it has always been tolerated.
Freedb just gives me track, artist and album names.
Parent
Re:no honor amongst theives (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:no honor amongst theives (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm if I was downloading MP3s from P2P networks, why would I need a freedb tagger? Find a source with EAC verified, high bitrate, properly tagged music and forget using this, chances are if it doesn't got the tags it'll suck anyway. CDDB, FreeDB and the like are fixes for an outdated format (CD Audio) from a time when noone needed those tags. Unless you think all the people ripping their own CDs to their iPod / PCs / HTPCs / media centers are thieves. This is too braindead to even be good flamebait.
Parent
Re:So.... (Score:5, Informative)
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