I didn't know him, but saw him on at least two different projects. He contributed a hell of a lot (including the first standalone OpenSolaris distro) and seemed like a man of very clear and definate tastes and principles.
Oh god, I remember cdrtools. It was such a cool software on the Linux desktop in the 2000s. Converting and Cloning CDs felt simple at Linux where it was notoriously challenging on Windows (I know I know. That's just my impression).
Unfortunately I don't know the other projects of Jörg Schilling.
Not really. Your linked post is referring to a retweet of the announcement by fuz (Robert Klausecker) on twitter (in German), while this thread is linking to his original post in english as email.
Note that "dupe" refers not just to a single link but to a given story. Generally the first submission is given preference, though here HN mods elected to stick with this later submission (there were several others posted within a few hours of each other).
I think many can remember the sheer magic of their first cdrecord run (and the terror of producing a coaster). Instantly recognizable name, really sad news.
cdrecord first induced me to try Linux in 1997. I had spent $400 on the Sony 2x CD burner with the caddy but Windows wasn't stable enough to reliably burn a disc. cdrecord was free and worth changing operating systems for.
I remember that magic as well and also that cdrtoools ran very stable - while buffer under-runs often ruined the then expensive CDRs on Windows. RIP and condolences to the family, he was one of the little known IT heroes despite probably millions having used his software.
RIP Jörg, many probably don't know him, however his work was at the basis of k3b, Brasero and many other software programs that allowed burning CDs in early 2000s. At least that's what I know him for.
Linux expanded and thrived thanks to CD copies and the support of CD recorders was often poor. His work surely affected many and he did his part in bringing Linux to where it is today.
Indeed - the name did ring a bell when I saw it, and then it all came back when I saw cdrtools at the top of the list (early 2000s in my case as well).
I remember him from cdrtools. It was amazing because I recall that it ran everywhere in the late 90s. SunOS, Solaris, DEC UNIX, FreeBSD, Linux, etc. That was remarkable for a piece of software that interacted with hardware.
Indeed. I still use the Windows port of CDRtools to burn CDs in Windows; CDs burned with Microsoft’s built in tools can have issues (such as, if I’m not careful, burning with a UDF filesystem which some CD players will not recognize; also the Windows CD burner can have issues burning a CD which is sector-by-sector the maximum size a given CD blank can fit) which are best fixed by using Schilling’s software instead.
I know as well as anybody that he was a man with strong opinions and a willingness to share them, but he also had a willingness to laugh at himself and his work. In the unlikely event that you ever made to the bottom of the cdrecord manpage, this is what you found:
Besides cdrecord, he created several other high quality tools. I especially remember star, a tar with features that made it much better suitable for real-world tape backups than GNU tar. A friend used it to implement a backup system.
I think people in the German nerdsphere had an affection for him because he was a fanatical fan of Solaris, which he liked to get into in all kinds of situations, notably in heated comments on heise.de. It was kind of cute to see such an obviously intelligent guy behave like that. Many geeks and nerds have things that they care much more about than would be considered "normal", after all.
I had a sparc 2000e, running solaris, with a 1tb disk array built of many 23gb, 8lb monster SCSI disks that had already lived a long life in a TV stations video array. Spread over like a dozen SCSI controller channels. slightly flaky.
Many of the things I made that machine do were only possible to me because of Shilling's shared knowledge. Thanks for that.
I‘ve had my share of flamewars with Jörg, as had many others. But it was always civilised and never went ad hominem. I will miss him. The few times we met in person, we had some good laughs about many things. Tough, but nice guy. Left too soon.
Sad but true, that was also my first thought when reading this sentence. Especially since he is best known for writing CD/DVD recording software. Small anecdote: this March, I have upgraded my desktop PC, and the new motherboard doesn't have a PATA port, so I haven't been able to use my Plextor CD/DVD recorder anymore for a few months. But I haven't really missed it enough to get me to buy a PATA interface card. And even before, I was only using it to rip audio CDs - I can't really remember when I burned my last CD (or was it a DVD?)...
> buying a portable HDD is significantly cheaper TB for TB but I feel they'll fail quicker
It depends on your usage model. If you "burn" a HDD and store it in a drawer, then pull it back after 15 years, chances are it will work fine - whereas the CD might well have lost a lot of data. It might not be cheaper per TB, though.
I think flash drives and SSDs decay a lot more quickly than traditional magnetic HDDs, and may decay more quickly than CDRs.
As a practical matter, I can generally read 20-year-old CDRs I burned just fine (I have only had issues with cheap CDR blanks, such as Fry’s old house brand); for things I want to last long-term, I use archival grade CDR blanks.
I've been burning to Blu-ray and putting a sha256sum file on the disc with the contents so that in theory, I can check the sums every so often and re-burn them to increase the longevity.
Granted I have not been using archival grade Blu-ray's because the cost to store terabytes is prohibitive.
As an aside, as a favor to your loved ones, I would put only really really important files on a single archival grade CD-R or, at most, DVD-R. This should be a really concise “here is the stuff worth remembering after I pass away” collection of files.
As someone who lost three close family members in the last five years, the last thing your relatives will want to do after you die is go through multiple terabytes of unorganized files to try and find relevant pictures and other heirlooms worth keeping (one relative had a nicely organized folder with relatively few important pictures on his hard disk, so I was able to fairly easily make a DVD of his photography for the family).
My “after my pass away” CD-R has one picture I took per month, starting in the mid-2000s decade when digital cameras started being widely available. There are notes about who is in each picture, where each picture is taken, and other relevant details about the pictures.
I also have 320k MP3 files of the better music I have composed over the years, since I am also an electronic musician.
In terms of open source software, it’s more likely than not that one of GitHub/GitLab/Sourceforge/Bitbucket or even Sourcehut will outlive me; my important projects are on multiple Git hosting services. Even if all of today’s Git repos go down, important software will be uploaded by others to what passes as Git to whatever repos exist in the future (See: The number of open source projects when never used Git mirrored on GitHub)
You make very good points and these are things I've put some thought into (particularly) since becoming a father.
The only stuff I consider really important is the photographs and videos, most of the things before our child(ren).
I think the interesting and most important point I've taken from you here is putting the "what/who/why/where".
We were looking through my childhood photos/videos at my parents recently but had no context for some of them and the people who might have known are no longer with us.
As for code, all of my code is open source when I finish a project (rare) but nothing that the world would miss (so far) so I haven't put any real effort into preserving it.
I think, for keeping pictures long term, the best format is to buy a photo album (but not one with sticky pages -- those go bad) and print out the pictures and put them in the album.
I have a photo album with a number of pictures and handwritten notes about where I was, who is in the picture, and what we were doing.
Second best option is an archival grade CD-R or DVD-R (but not Blu-Ray: There was/is not enough support for Blu Rays, but at one point, CD/DVD support was universal), with the contents clearly marked on the front of the disk so your loved ones can quickly know what is on the disk. Images should all be in .jpg format (converted as necessary), and notes should be in .txt files. (.webp will probably work long term, but I would use .jpg to ensure compatibility, since that is the lowest common denominator format for photos)
Music, if one is a composer, should be either 16/44.1 .wav files or 320k mp3 files; the music files should be in stereo.
I would have videos be 24p (24 frames per second) or 30p (30 frames per second) 720p resolution (hi-def: 1280x720) video in H264 .mp4 format. Be careful: Some open source applications will write a .mp4 they themselves can play, but won’t play (or won’t play well) on other video players. H264 format .mp4 looks to be pretty much universally compatible, however. I suggest keeping the resolution and frame rate down to minimize problems.
>I wish this was true just a bit. Software goes away with the time almost like no other human artifact.
You might be surprised. Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky (recently discussed here) describes in some detail the job position of programmer archaeologist (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_archaeology>).
Hopefully, someone (maybe me) will step up to plate and maintain the Debian fork of CDR tools again, for Schilling’s memory if nothing else (and to fix bugs, such as the issue with post-2027 CDR images [1] which I have already fixed).
Aside form the licence stuff already linked there were also endless flamewars on how to specify devices when invoking his tools. Schilling was a proponent of SCSI-adressing, and pretty much everyone else wanted to use /dev.
I recognise his name as something that flitted by on copyright pages, for tools that made my life easier, better, and for free.
And sad though his passing is, it marks something else for me - that a person committed to "improving the world a little" is recognised without having made billions in an IPO or become a media celebrity. Maybe we can all aim a little lower (or higher depending on how you see it) now.
Damn, I remember working with him to bring cdrutils to solaris back in the day, he was quite no-nonsense but we had quite a lot of fun on irc poking around, star was always faster than gnutar too.
First of all, compassion and condolences for Schilling’s family.
Second of all, I had a very recent positive interaction with him. I recently was in contact with Mr. Schilling to report a bug in CDR tools. Even though he was (looking back) dying, he was very prompt in replying to me and discussing the bug with me over email. However, even though I gave him a fix, he was unable to apply it, probably because of his poor health.
Thirdly, there is a really serious bug in CDR tools: It will start creating bad timestamps in 2028. That’s not a typo: 2028 (not 2038). Because of how ISO 9660 filesystems store timestamps (8-bit number, 0 is 1900), on 2038 (1900 + 128), unless the 8-bit number is explicitly made an unsigned number (assumed with other ISO 9660 implementations), there will be issues with timestamps. [1]
Hehe. I’m not sure someone’s epitaph is the appropriate place to report a bug. On the other hand, after thinking about it, I hope someone reports a bug in one of my tools in my obituary thread :)
Donald Knuth has a unique solution to the “bugs after death” problem. When he dies, TeX goes to version pi, and METAFONT to version e. All bugs become features.
It is sort of beautiful in a way. It reminds me of how people will look back on a musician's discography when they pass. For programmers, maybe looking through their code and the unique voice they expressed through it is what we do.
Well it looks like cdrtools is in need of a new maintainer now, if the outcome is that you carry on the legacy and let the tool live on, that would be great!
Yes, indeed, I’ve been annoyed that there isn’t a maintainer for the Debian port for a while. I will maintain the code based on the final pure-GPL version of the code, to avoid the entire licensing issue.
If Eric Youngdale could come out of the woodwork and retroactively add a “CDR tools, as a special GPL exception, can integrate CDDL licensed code” clause, that might allow us to use Schilling’s more recent code, but, to be safe, I prefer to work with the older codebase to keep the license simple.
> I will maintain the code based on the final pure-GPL version of the code, to avoid the entire licensing issue.
But that's what Debian did already with wodim/cdrkit much to Jörg's dismay. I don't think it received much development and afaik never got BluRay support.
If the copyright holder is dead, there is nothing to be afraid of in violating his license, surely...? At worst you could ask his heirs to add that exception.
Yes. In the 'reverts to copyright' view of GPL, the estate gets full rights and can proceed however they wish. Which, thanks to the Mouse Corporation, is a long time.
> Copyright protection generally lasts for 70 years after the death of the author. If the work was a "work for hire", then copyright persists for 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever is shorter.
> While it has not been brought to court, some lawyers, include the Free Software Foundation’s legal counsel, feel the CDDL may be incompatible with the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Which is irrelevant as the code does not contain any GPL code, right?
I haven't thought about him in ages, or cdrtools, but I benefited heavily from his software once upon a time. The cdrtools flamewars seem positively quaint these days. Clearly a talented developer and his work definitely was a help in open source catching on.
I never interacted with Mr. Schilling, but when I saw the title, I was telling myself: "Jorg Schilling, Jorg Schilling, I know that name for sure" - then I remember: I would see that copyright notice a thousand times waiting on a mkisofs + cdrecord session back when GUI tools weren't quite there yet.
In Hebrew they say: חבל עד דאבדין ולא משתכחין
(well, technically it's part Aramaic)
Rest In Piece and honor for paving important stretches of the road on which the world of software marches on.
94 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 126 ms ] threadI'll continue to remember him fondly
Unfortunately I don't know the other projects of Jörg Schilling.
I agree that this is a more informative link.
There are also a few (one-way) bridge gateways.
So ... kind of.
Linux expanded and thrived thanks to CD copies and the support of CD recorders was often poor. His work surely affected many and he did his part in bringing Linux to where it is today.
Thanks Jorg.
Thanks, Jörg, for useful tools that have kept on being useful.
I remember him from cdrtools. It was amazing because I recall that it ran everywhere in the late 90s. SunOS, Solaris, DEC UNIX, FreeBSD, Linux, etc. That was remarkable for a piece of software that interacted with hardware.
The same hardware on Windows was very hard to dedicate enough power to the recording software in the 95/98 era.
I think people in the German nerdsphere had an affection for him because he was a fanatical fan of Solaris, which he liked to get into in all kinds of situations, notably in heated comments on heise.de. It was kind of cute to see such an obviously intelligent guy behave like that. Many geeks and nerds have things that they care much more about than would be considered "normal", after all.
Many of the things I made that machine do were only possible to me because of Shilling's shared knowledge. Thanks for that.
I shall burn a terminator in salute.
I wish this was true just a bit. Software goes away with the time almost like no other human artifact.
I have a USB-3.1 BluRay writer I use for burning 50GB-100GB BDs with family photos/videos (alongside other media).
The downside is that buying a portable HDD is significantly cheaper TB for TB but I feel they'll fail quicker, who knows, so I keep copies on both.
It depends on your usage model. If you "burn" a HDD and store it in a drawer, then pull it back after 15 years, chances are it will work fine - whereas the CD might well have lost a lot of data. It might not be cheaper per TB, though.
As a practical matter, I can generally read 20-year-old CDRs I burned just fine (I have only had issues with cheap CDR blanks, such as Fry’s old house brand); for things I want to last long-term, I use archival grade CDR blanks.
Granted I have not been using archival grade Blu-ray's because the cost to store terabytes is prohibitive.
As someone who lost three close family members in the last five years, the last thing your relatives will want to do after you die is go through multiple terabytes of unorganized files to try and find relevant pictures and other heirlooms worth keeping (one relative had a nicely organized folder with relatively few important pictures on his hard disk, so I was able to fairly easily make a DVD of his photography for the family).
My “after my pass away” CD-R has one picture I took per month, starting in the mid-2000s decade when digital cameras started being widely available. There are notes about who is in each picture, where each picture is taken, and other relevant details about the pictures.
I also have 320k MP3 files of the better music I have composed over the years, since I am also an electronic musician.
In terms of open source software, it’s more likely than not that one of GitHub/GitLab/Sourceforge/Bitbucket or even Sourcehut will outlive me; my important projects are on multiple Git hosting services. Even if all of today’s Git repos go down, important software will be uploaded by others to what passes as Git to whatever repos exist in the future (See: The number of open source projects when never used Git mirrored on GitHub)
You make very good points and these are things I've put some thought into (particularly) since becoming a father.
The only stuff I consider really important is the photographs and videos, most of the things before our child(ren).
I think the interesting and most important point I've taken from you here is putting the "what/who/why/where".
We were looking through my childhood photos/videos at my parents recently but had no context for some of them and the people who might have known are no longer with us.
As for code, all of my code is open source when I finish a project (rare) but nothing that the world would miss (so far) so I haven't put any real effort into preserving it.
Second best option is an archival grade CD-R or DVD-R (but not Blu-Ray: There was/is not enough support for Blu Rays, but at one point, CD/DVD support was universal), with the contents clearly marked on the front of the disk so your loved ones can quickly know what is on the disk. Images should all be in .jpg format (converted as necessary), and notes should be in .txt files. (.webp will probably work long term, but I would use .jpg to ensure compatibility, since that is the lowest common denominator format for photos)
Music, if one is a composer, should be either 16/44.1 .wav files or 320k mp3 files; the music files should be in stereo.
I would have videos be 24p (24 frames per second) or 30p (30 frames per second) 720p resolution (hi-def: 1280x720) video in H264 .mp4 format. Be careful: Some open source applications will write a .mp4 they themselves can play, but won’t play (or won’t play well) on other video players. H264 format .mp4 looks to be pretty much universally compatible, however. I suggest keeping the resolution and frame rate down to minimize problems.
I guess I'll find out in 20 years or so which lasted longer.
The video cassettes my parents recorded my childhood on in the 80s and 90s are still going strong, I don't know if modern media will last as well.
The pen drive my wedding photographer gave us our photographs on was used exactly once, I tried it ~5 years later and it's was dead.
I suppose each form of media has its issues so I'm simply trying not to rely on any single technology.
You might be surprised. Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky (recently discussed here) describes in some detail the job position of programmer archaeologist (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_archaeology>).
Very sad to hear this news. RIP.
https://lwn.net/Articles/195167/
[1] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=990468
I loved his opinionation.
My deepest condolences to the family and friends.
And sad though his passing is, it marks something else for me - that a person committed to "improving the world a little" is recognised without having made billions in an IPO or become a media celebrity. Maybe we can all aim a little lower (or higher depending on how you see it) now.
Thank you Jorg.
Our condolences to your loved ones.
Will raise a glass to you tonight, friend.
Second of all, I had a very recent positive interaction with him. I recently was in contact with Mr. Schilling to report a bug in CDR tools. Even though he was (looking back) dying, he was very prompt in replying to me and discussing the bug with me over email. However, even though I gave him a fix, he was unable to apply it, probably because of his poor health.
Thirdly, there is a really serious bug in CDR tools: It will start creating bad timestamps in 2028. That’s not a typo: 2028 (not 2038). Because of how ISO 9660 filesystems store timestamps (8-bit number, 0 is 1900), on 2038 (1900 + 128), unless the 8-bit number is explicitly made an unsigned number (assumed with other ISO 9660 implementations), there will be issues with timestamps. [1]
A full bug report, complete with a bugfix is here: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=990468
A fork of cdrtools with this bug fixed is on GitHub: https://github.com/samboy/iso9660
Again, prayers for Schilling’s family, and he was very professional in his interactions with me, even in his final days.
[1] The issue is with how Schilling’s CDR tools calculates timezones; the time zone becomes an invalid number starting in 2028.
I wish we had a better word for what strenholme is doing besides "maintainer".
To have known the deceased and decide to continue their work is something special indeed.
If Eric Youngdale could come out of the woodwork and retroactively add a “CDR tools, as a special GPL exception, can integrate CDDL licensed code” clause, that might allow us to use Schilling’s more recent code, but, to be safe, I prefer to work with the older codebase to keep the license simple.
But that's what Debian did already with wodim/cdrkit much to Jörg's dismay. I don't think it received much development and afaik never got BluRay support.
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?package=geniso...
If the copyright holder is dead, there is nothing to be afraid of in violating his license, surely...? At worst you could ask his heirs to add that exception.
> Copyright protection generally lasts for 70 years after the death of the author. If the work was a "work for hire", then copyright persists for 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever is shorter.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_St...]
> A fork of cdrtools with this bug fixed is on GitHub: https://github.com/samboy/iso9660
I dedicate this repo this his memory. --> I dedicate this repo to his memory.
Which is irrelevant as the code does not contain any GPL code, right?
[1] Youngdale at one point was one of the Yggdrasil Linux developers, for people using Linux long enough to remember that long since abandoned distro.
In Hebrew they say: חבל עד דאבדין ולא משתכחין (well, technically it's part Aramaic)
Rest In Piece and honor for paving important stretches of the road on which the world of software marches on.