freedb
freedb is a database of compact disc track
listings, where all the content is under the GNU General Public License. It
was originally based on the now-proprietary CDDB (compact disc
database). As of April 24 2006, the database holds just under
2,000,000 CDs.[1] To look up CD information over the
On July 1 2006, two of the main freedb developers resigned.[2]. Although this caused much worrying over the future of the project, it was announced on July 7, 2006[3] that plans were in place that would most likely find freedb a new home and it would continue its operation as normal.
On October 4 2006, freedb owner Michael Kaiser announced[4] that Magix had acquired freedb.
On 25 June, 2007, MusicBrainz officially released their freedb gateway that allows users to harvest information from the MusicBrainz database rather than freedb.[5]
Motivation
The original software behind CDDB was released under the GNU General Public License, and many people submitted CD information thinking the service would also remain free. The license was later changed, however, and some programmers complained that the new license included certain terms that they couldn't accept: if one wanted to access CDDB, one was not allowed to access any other CDDB-like database (such as freedb), and any programs using a CDDB lookup had to display a CDDB logo while performing the lookup.[6]
In March 2001, CDDB, now owned by Gracenote, banned all unlicensed applications from accessing their database. New licenses for CDDB1 (the original version of CDDB) were no longer available, since Gracenote wanted to force programmers to switch to CDDB2 (a new version incompatible with CDDB1 and hence with freedb).[6]
The license change motivated the freedb project, which is intended to remain free (both as in beer and as in speech).
Another project sparked by the license change (and since broadened beyond a mere database of CDs) is called MusicBrainz.
freedb is used primarily by media players, cataloguers, audio taggers and CD ripper software. As of version 6 of the freedb protocol, freedb accepts and returns UTF-8 data.
References
- ^ Massive duplicate cleanup completed. freedb. Retrieved on 2006-05-09.
- ^ The future of freedb. Retrieved on 2006-07-02.
- ^ Updates in recent developments with freedb. Retrieved on 2006-07-08.
- ^ MAGIX acquires freedb. Retrieved on 2006-10-05.
- ^ Kaye, Robert. "FreeDB -> MusicBrainz gateway now available!", MusicBrainz, 2007-06-25. Retrieved on 2007-07-10.
- ^ a b Why freedb.org?. freedb. Retrieved on 2006-05-09.
See also
External links
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