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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod -16/40)
by cruel (195.234.69.78) on Fri Apr 6 11:23:31 2007 (GMT)
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How about this gem from R. Stallman's "The GNU GPL and the American Way"
(http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gpl-american-way.html):
...
Addendum:
...
My views about copyright take an hour to expound, but one general principle applies: it cannot justify denying the public important freedoms. As Abraham Lincoln put it, "Whenever there is a conflict between human rights and property rights, human rights must prevail." Property rights are meant to advance human well-being, not as an excuse to disregard it.
And these are true Marcus' rights:
- to be respected as a human,
- and not to be crucified for mistake.
This so-called "GPL Philosophy" is just another kind of lie.
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Grow up! (0/10) by ferry on Sat Apr 7 19:09:26 2007 (GMT)
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Re: Grow up! (0/10) by Anonymous Coward on Mon Apr 9 01:06:36 2007 (GMT)
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Re: Grow up! (0/4) by Anonymous Coward on Tue Apr 10 19:22:08 2007 (GMT)
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod -17/33)
by Didier Wiroth (194.154.200.108) (didier.wiroth@mcesr.etat.lu) on Fri Apr 6 11:36:04 2007 (GMT)
http://www.wiroth.net
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"Mr. Buesch, have you no decency?"
I can answer this: "No, he showed NO decency at all!
Mr Buesch's behavior is actually very disappointing!
He should haved CC: @cnn.com, @nbc.com ..etc... heuh heuh heuh .... What a nice way to handle this ....
Oh and what a nice gpl broadcom community .... BRAVO !!!
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod 0/32)
by Anonymous Coward (81.83.81.251) on Fri Apr 6 11:36:31 2007 (GMT)
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That is indeed quite rude. I'm sorry to hear that there are sods out there who would treat Marcus like this. I'm an insensitive clod, but even I have the decency to talk to people privately before bullshitting in public. Shame on you, GPL monkeys.
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod 11/51)
by Wokatakamekodong (87.234.181.144) on Fri Apr 6 11:50:57 2007 (GMT)
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Marcus Glocker needs to grow up and grow some balls while he's at it. He is a royal pita on IRC and now got busted while his hands were in bcm43xx's cookie jar? He has to learn to play by some rules or just go back where he came from. I'm sorry to see any driver go away but Theo is right (once again) when it comes to licensing.
On a technical note if you haven't read the fine article in whole: The linux driver guys apparently invented something that Broadcom does not have in their closed source driver. Allowing this to go from GPL to BSD license would allow corporate Broadcom to reuse it in their closed source driver. Check the archives on posts about Broadcom being among the most BSD unfriendly vendors on the planet. Just like Adaptec if you will.
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod 30/64)
by Jason Dixon (70.17.17.155) (jason@dixongroup.net) on Fri Apr 6 12:00:43 2007 (GMT)
http://www.dixongroup.net/
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And for any Linux-wireless aplogists who wander over to Undeadly to further attack Marcus...
* Nobody disputes that GPL code was committed to OpenBSD CVS.
* Nobody disputes that this was in violation of your license.
* Nobody disputes that the bcm43xx code was a cleanroom implementation that took a long time to complete.
* Nobody disputes that Michael Buesch was one of the authors of said code.
None of these facts are relevant to the discussion. The sole issue is that Michael Beusch made a public spectacle out of Marcus' mistake. It should have been addressed privately between developers, and then broadcast publicly if discussions were unsuccessful. Regardless of whether you believe Marcus' actions were a mistake or a theft, you must give someone with his track record the benefit of the doubt. By embarrassing him publicly, Michael destroyed Marcus' motivation to work in bcm(4) and benefit the non-GPL user communities.
Even one of your own, Jeff Garzik, admitted that Michael's actions were wrong. It's unfortunate that Michael Beusch is more concerned about defending his actions than correcting the injustice.
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Get serious (-3/9) by Open Wookie on Sun Apr 8 19:39:33 2007 (GMT)
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Re: Get serious (-1/13) by Anonymous Coward on Mon Apr 9 03:22:01 2007 (GMT)
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Re: Get serious (-2/8) by Anonymous Coward on Wed Apr 11 16:41:24 2007 (GMT)
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod 19/43)
by Tobias Weisserth (143.93.17.28) on Fri Apr 6 12:21:17 2007 (GMT)
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What's this new article on undeadly supposed to bring about?! The whole thing is being discussed on A LOT OF PUBLIC MAILING LISTS already and this is actually what disturbs people in the OpenBSD community and now you escalate the situation even more by attacking Buesch yet again on a public website! This is plain stupid behaviour!
Mr. Buesch simply aggressively defended his copyright and in that regard he has a valid and solid point. His license has been violated, there's no doubt about it and the intent with what it was violated is simply not relevant as the effect is still the same. It's as simply as that. Period. Marcus has made a mistake by putting GPL code in a public CVS repository, he should have kept the code on his machine in private while rewriting it in a way it doesn't infringe on anybody's licenses anymore.
Theo's initial answer[1] was a decent approach to address the bad style of addressing this issue. What's more to say than that? Playing it big like you did with this article, accusing Buesch of having no decency is really something when you consider that /his/ copyright has been violated by Marcus and not the other way around! Do you know what this looks like to people from the outside? The OpenBSD community manages to present itself in the most disadvantageous, dislikable and most of all quarrelsome way. Congratulations!
[1][http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.wireless.general/1558/]
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I don't understand the problem (mod 11/45)
by Cabal (Cabal) (Cabal) on Fri Apr 6 12:33:53 2007 (GMT)
http://www.enginuity.org/
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The driver author politely mailed the people involved, included the points that led him to believe there was a license violation, and concluded with:
We'd like to offer you to start cooperating with us.
We respect you and your Copyright. You should also do so on our work.
We would not be opposed to relicensing parts of our code under the BSD
license on an explicit case-by-case base.
So if you ask "May I use this and that function" and if I own the
Copyright on that particular function, I will approve or deny your request.
Other Copyright holders of the bcm43xx code might act the same way.
We're not out for blood, just for a fair resolution.
We'd like you to start contacting us to resolve the issue now.
Have a nice day.
He is attempting to work with the OpenBSD developers to create an amiable solution, and he's attacked, first and foremost by Theo. If this is the sort of response he can expect, I'm surprised he even tried in the first place rather than taking the hard line route.
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod 16/20)
by ddp (205.153.56.10) on Fri Apr 6 12:49:41 2007 (GMT)
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There was an issue with an IDE driver a while back where the linux dev. did not give proper attribution to the (I think) FreeBSD developer who wrote the code. slashdot and other such sites made a big deal about it, but the developers handled it nicely. They fixed the issue, shrugged their shoulders, and said it was a mistake.
The various groups can work together, if they try.
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How can we all get what we want? (mod 9/13)
by Chas (12.217.82.49) on Fri Apr 6 12:50:17 2007 (GMT)
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I first saw the Inquirer writeup on this issue.
First, let's start out by saying that Broadcom as a vendor has had such a forceful mix of arrogance and stupidity, that they deserve very special treatment.
Given this, what would be wrong with releasing a GPL driver for this hardware, in source code only, that must be linked into a newly-built kernel by the end user at runtime? A compiler is required for patching, so why not do something similar for GPL-tainted driver support?
And, more importantly, why not issue similar GPL drivers for every device that vendors refuse to document or otherwise obstruct?
GPL in this way can be used as a weapon. It would be less convenient for end users, encouraging them to choose other hardware. It would be scorched earth for the vendors, denying them the fruits of OpenBSD's intellectual labor. And finally, it would (probably) take less of the very valuable time of the OpenBSD developers. OpenBSD (reluctantly) embraces GPL in a number of other contexts; would it be impossible to use it this way?
And I would personally like to see a "Kernel GPL Driver Hall of Shame" for all of these deadbeat vendors. May their bankruptcy be both soon and painful, as they are the root cause of this ruckus.
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod 14/32)
by Anonymous Coward (217.210.129.142) on Fri Apr 6 14:29:45 2007 (GMT)
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I understand thay y'all like to keep face by projecting the blame for this whole fiasco on the big GPL meanies, and pretend that it wasn't a monumentally stupid OpenBSD dev at fault here. You all like your project and it's natural to be protective about it.
However, it is sad to see that Theo doesn't understand copyright. He says there was no infingement becaus the driver wasn't used yet, which is nonsense. Copyright doesn't cover use, it covers distribution. And since it was in OpenBSD's public CVS server with a faulty license...
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod 3/13)
by Cobalt (70.162.93.223) on Fri Apr 6 14:53:05 2007 (GMT)
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I'd just like to say that I, peon that I am, support Marco's work. I don't care if he made one mistake here, his body of work is impressive. If he lived near me I'd buy the man a beer (if not many many many beers so this incident could go away).
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This should of been private... (mod -10/32)
by Brynet (Brynet) on Fri Apr 6 15:09:33 2007 (GMT)
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Marcus Glocker used "simple" functions as place holders in his development, Maybe accidentally importing these into the CVS..
But the driver in question DOES NOT EVEN WORK YET, Michael Buesch should of contacted Marcus privately and asked him to either credit him or re-write the functions of similar design.
It is neither illegal or immoral to study GPL code when working on something under BSD, Copying might be wrong.. but the bcm43xx crew should not of made this such a public humiliation of Marcus Clocker, He is a good developer and DID write a majority of the OpenBSD bcw driver.. investing hundreds of hours of his personal time.. (as a hobby..)
Now because of this public attack the driver was deleted from CVS.
Seriously, You GPL zealots really piss me off.. Theo is definitely right!!
Because of a few similar functions.. Apparently copyrighted whitespace and variables names, The code and any hope of bcw on OpenBSD is lost.
Feel proud everyone.. You totally made someones many months of work on a "free" bcw driver useless.
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod 23/25)
by Anonymous Coward (216.68.198.57) on Fri Apr 6 16:41:34 2007 (GMT)
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I respect Mr. Glocker's hard work and effort, however, a mistake was made. Yawn, life happens. A little mistake on free stuff, on non-productive development copyright, a small matter to the rest of the world.
While legal issues and "face" issues matter, all this is small. If bcw really matters, things can get worked out hopefully.
OpenBSD is becoming a top notch OS, and that brings petty hardships, but also more rewards to developers. A higher stakes game.
I hope Mr. Glocker well, and a better luck next time, its very easy to make ANY error these days, and people love to grind you out for fun!
I hope the OS wars don't start up again, however it seems the new trend.
Maybe bcw can be resurrected. A little paper always seems to do good.
Peace all, and thanks for working in this crazy field.
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod -3/27)
by Anonymous Coward (81.106.129.122) on Fri Apr 6 20:47:56 2007 (GMT)
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Someone called up OpenBSD on copyright violation. That's all. 2 dozen comments with urls to rants about how gpl is unamerican is just hot air.
This 'public shaming' is somehow a crime, but it's ok for Undeadly to piss and whine about no-one paying openbsd for OpenSSH a while ago.
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod 22/30)
by Harpalus a Como (216.168.99.150) on Fri Apr 6 23:20:09 2007 (GMT)
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Michael noticed copied code. His e-mail is fairly reasonable. The problem is, of course, that he went so public with it. It smeared reputation.
On the other hand, Theo got upset. Everyone snaps sometimes. It's a shame that it happened, and it only ends up hurting the project's reputation. Sorry, Theo. I respect you quite a bit, but I think you let your temper get the best of you. I'll continue purchasing OpenBSD CDs and using the OS, and continue studying OpenBSD code in the hope I'll be as good.
Can everyone move on? Stop the flamewar, stop the public smearing, sort it out in private..this pointless bickering only creates harsh feelings and further divides the Linux/BSD communities, which could greatly benefit each other.
Not that anyone cares about my opinion.
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Whoa... (mod -8/20)
by Anonymous Coward (24.37.242.64) on Sat Apr 7 01:05:19 2007 (GMT)
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This Michael Buesch, does he work for the company? Is he a spokes person for the company? He sure does need a clue or two...!
He's given me a bad taste for this company by directly and/or indirectly speaking on their behalf in such an immature and uneducated manner (for a spokes person).
Unfortunately, I won't be using their products now and neither will my company... This has caused bad publicity for them, IMHO, and possibly loss of sales, all thanks to him. Very unfortunate for everyone, including the company - all thanks to Michael!
Just my $0.02
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Re: Whoa... (-1/11) by Anonymous Coward on Sat Apr 7 01:39:05 2007 (GMT)
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Re: Whoa... (-2/8) by Anonymous Coward on Mon Apr 9 07:25:40 2007 (GMT)
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Deanna, have *you* no decency? (mod 3/41)
by Anonymous Coward (151.188.0.134) on Sat Apr 7 02:50:47 2007 (GMT)
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The guy's copyright got walked all over, and he called the violator(s) on it. I'd have done the same thing. Marcus and Theo, and those who defend them, are the ones who ought to be ashamed, not Michael. Marcus got exactly what was coming to him. And Theo could use some egg in his face too, for his temper tantrum.
Deanna, you've certainly helped the OpenBSD project, and by extension, me, since I use OpenBSD. But what amazes me is that you're actually backing up the copyright violators here when they royally screwed up. *Royally.* What's up with that?
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod -1/31)
by wob (71.237.33.86) (wob@bonch.org) on Sat Apr 7 04:04:12 2007 (GMT)
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The best part to me, is the hypocritical stance these zealots are taking.
It's OK for some of these linux distributions, and programmers to sign NDAs, etc, in order to develop drivers. But boy, as soon as one OpenBSD programmer makes a mistake, lets all dogpile on top of them, even though they provide us with great software. We can't just give them the benefit of the doubt, we have to point out each and every single time they make a mistake and rub it in their faces. Why? Because OpenBSD actually takes its licensing seriously. We all know the numberous cleanup efforts that have gone on because of this (cya ipf, qmail), their stance on firmware distribution, etc. So, when they do screw up, everyone has to point it out.
At least the OpenBSD developers try. How about the rest of you who are dogpiling? Do you all feel like bigger people now when someone makes a mistake for one of the most true to its core values and goals open source projects?
I would think there would be much bigger issues to take on, instead of this petty crap.
Grow up and get over yourselves, zealots.
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod 2/12)
by Anonymous Coward (69.123.9.119) on Sat Apr 7 06:38:03 2007 (GMT)
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so this story via the ridiculous inquirer article, has made it to digg where they show their usual lack of english comprehension.
http://digg.com/linux_unix/Open_Source_coders_caught_stealing_Open_Source_code
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod 12/22)
by Renaud Allard (renaud) (renaud@llorien.org) on Sat Apr 7 17:41:19 2007 (GMT)
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Here is how I see it.
Michael Buesch, "his" crew and the reverse engineers made a tremendous amount of work to reverse engineer the driver, write specs, then write a clean room implementation of the driver. This is quite a huge amount of work which took them years. It is really impressive. He didn't want to dual license his code because he didn't want broadcom to benefit of his work, which is all in all his right.
Now, he hears about someone who is trying to make a BSD driver. Then he sees some of his code copied in the _not working_ BSD driver (more than probably to help in writing and debugging other parts). And then he gets upset and decides the BSD developer cannot follow this easy route and has to work as hard as he did when he wrote the driver. So he went public and threatened the BSD developer without trying to understand or find a compromise with him privately.
All of this amplified by the zealots reading mailing lists.
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod -3/17)
by lu_zero (151.43.235.172) on Sat Apr 7 18:05:32 2007 (GMT)
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This is the initial message
https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/bcm43xx-dev/2007-April/004359.html
We'd like to have this issue resolved.
In general we are not against having a free (and BSD licensed) driver
in the BSD operating system. But you _have_ to cooperate with us if you'd
like to take our code and relicense it under BSD license. We intentionally
put the code under GPL license. We did _not_ do this, because "everybody
does this". We did this, among other reasons, because we
[citing Michael, Mon, 26 Dec 2005 13:03:44 +0100]
"don't think we should allow proprietary vendors to take our code
and close it again."
-----
Looks like you are either in bad faith or you missed completely half of the starting email. Quit crying outrage because you were caught ignoring a copyright AND even the values the BSD license protect.
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod 10/20)
by Anonymous Coward (71.120.227.200) on Sat Apr 7 18:22:47 2007 (GMT)
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If it had been Microsoft or some other proprietary Vendor, everyone would have been *FOR* making it as public as possible. Why should OpenBSD (or Linux etc.) be treated differently? It is a Copyright violation no matter who does it.
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A derived work is an infringement (mod -3/19)
by Heath (131.107.0.105) on Sat Apr 7 18:43:39 2007 (GMT)
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I think most of the BSD-side posters here are expressing a view that is technically incorrect.
The incorrect view I question is the repeatedly stated belief that the BSD driver would not have infringed on the GPL driver if, by the time the BSD driver was completed, it did not bear similarities to the GPL driver. This is not correct.
The reason cleanroom techniques are employed by responsible developers is that a derivative work is usually covered by the copyright of the original work.
In the case of this transgression, the derivation of the BSD driver from the GPL driver was carefully documented. This actually further indicates the naive approach taken by some in the BSD camp.
A poster on this page has above suggested that the problem was with committing the BSD source while it still contained exact replicas of GPL source. The suggestion was that the BSD work should have been derived in secret but otherwise through the same process, and only then incorporated into the OpenBSD source. This suggestion should be questioned on the grounds that in that case a theft of copyright would have occured, although it would then be harder to establish proof of theft.
I hope the BSD camp will consider that what happened here was appropriation of another person's work. The followers of GPL hold that their software is more free than BSD, and the followers of BSD hold the same superiority complex. In fact, the two camps differ on goals and principles but are often confused by language. The GPL camp takes a view that software must remain protected under Copyright so that it can be protected from proprietary uses. The BSD camp takes a view that software should be nearly unencumbered from licensing and that public software does not enjoy typical protections from appropriation -- other than an advertising clause. This may relate to the effect that the BSD community has selected a population that does not hold the same view on copyright that the GPL community has attracted.
In any case, the law is on the side of the GPL authors in this case. It may be unfortunate that the email was read so harshly. I think the author wanted a sure response, and not to be the recipient of a response formulated at the liesure of the whole "BSD Team."
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod 5/13)
by Anonymous Coward (68.164.71.134) on Sat Apr 7 18:46:52 2007 (GMT)
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As someone who's received a cease-and-desist letter from actual lawyers, I have to say...
This *was* respectful.
He wasn't told to shut things down immediately or face legal action. He was told there seemed to be some issues, and was offered help in resolving them.
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A symptom of a changed culture (mod 4/12)
by Ed - 0x1b (24.119.18.143) on Sat Apr 7 19:30:33 2007 (GMT)
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I find this dust-up interesting in how the GNU/Linux Development has become more formalized, more institutional and perhaps more distant from it's own GNU roots. While I expect the OBSD culture would have easily fixed any problem with an informal email between developers, the correct path in the GNU/Linux culture is now a more formal declaration. Culturally, such formality violates the small cadre developer ethos one finds in OBSD. Especially since this highlights that GNU/Linux development no longer shares this model.
Relationships that once could be taken for granted as sharing a cultural model should be reviewed for having lost this innate leverage. Otherwise they will create an ongoing series of avoidable dust-ups and increased ill-will.
Eyes open people - this wasn't personal and should have been expected. Somebody should ask if McKinsey would do some pro-bono work for the FOSS world.
ean
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod -3/23)
by Anonymous Coward (77.128.142.77) on Sat Apr 7 20:10:53 2007 (GMT)
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To counter the propaganda of the lying OpenBSD thief, here the original message. Kids, remember, when you do a lying piece of propaganda, at least first manipulate the facts in your way before you go public.
You have been caught steeling code. Admit it and excuse, instead of blaming the one you stole from.
I, Michael Buesch, am one of the maintainers of the GPL'd Linux
wireless LAN driver for the Broadcom chip (bcm43xx).
The Copyright holders of bcm43xx (which includes me) want to talk
to you, OpenBSD bcw developers, about possible GPL license and therefore
Copyright violations in your bcw driver.
We believe that you might have directly copied code
out of bcm43xx (licensed under GPL v2), without our explicit permission,
into bcw (licensed under BSD license).
There are implementation details in bcm43xx that appear exactly
the same in bcw. These implementation details clearly don't come
from the open specifications at bcm-specs.sipsolutions.net
or bcm-v4.sipsolutions.net.
We have always made and still make a great effort to keep our code clean
of any Copyright issues (cleanroom design). Please make sure you also do.
A few examples follow of what we think might be GPL violations.
This list is far from being complete.
BCW_PHY_STACKSAVE()
BCW_ILT_STACKSAVE()
bcw_stack_save()
bcw_stack_restore()
These functions are a possible implementation of the specs when
they say "backup/restore a value".
Yet, it looks like you had exactly the same idea implementing this
generic description that I had.
bcw_set_opmode()
This function does not appear in the specifications.
I think Jiri Benc wrote it initially (and gave it its name) and
I extended it.
bcw_leds_switch_all()
is not in the specs, but a pure implementation detail of bcm43xx.
bcw_sprom_read()
This is obviously copied. Even the error message string is similiar.
bcw_phy_calc_loopback_gain()
I think it's no coincidence that you also decided to name the backup
variables like
uint16_t backup_phy[15];
uint16_t backup_radio[3];
uint16_t backup_bband;
bcw_phy_init_pctl()
uint16_t saved_batt = 0, saved_ratt = 0, saved_txctl1 = 0;
int must_reset_txpower = 0;
bcw_phy_xmitpower()
Attenuation adjustment algorithms (while loops).
bcw_phy_lo_g_state()
This exactly matches bcm43xx, although the specs only have an abstract
description and diagram of the state machine.
bcw_phy_lo_g_deviation_subval()
/* XXX bcm43xx_voluntary_preempt() ? */
Nice comment there.
You might want to grep bcw for the string "bcm43xx"
and you will find more of them.
... and all the rest.
We'd like to have this issue resolved.
In general we are not against having a free (and BSD licensed) driver
in the BSD operating system. But you _have_ to cooperate with us if you'd
like to take our code and relicense it under BSD license. We intentionally
put the code under GPL license. We did _not_ do this, because "everybody
does this". We did this, among other reasons, because we
[citing Michael, Mon, 26 Dec 2005 13:03:44 +0100]
"don't think we should allow proprietary vendors to take our code
and close it again."
[citing Michael, Date unknown]
"What if Broadcom decides to take our LO measure state machine and
put it into the original driver? (The Rev Engineers told me they have
a very different weird solution for this in their code).
I really don't want to see this happen."
We'd like to offer you to start cooperating with us.
We respect you and your Copyright. You should also do so on our work.
We would not be opposed to relicensing parts of our code under the BSD
license on an explicit case-by-case base.
So if you ask "May I use this and that function" and if I own the
Copyright on that particular function, I will approve or deny your request.
Other Copyright holders of the bcm43xx code might act the same way.
We're not out for blood, just for a fair resolution.
We'd like you to start contacting us to resolve the issue now.
Have a nice day.
--
Greetings Michael.
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod 2/18)
by Anonymous Coward (80.171.82.108) on Sat Apr 7 20:16:09 2007 (GMT)
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Heh ... why is this account of the story so biased? You could simply say the code was put in CVS. But no. That's not the impression we want the reader to have. So we write:
"Since the nature of our community is participatory, the work-in-progress is now stored in a public CVS repository, so that even more people may study and contribute. What lies in CVS could be called a very rough draft."
Of course, this "very rough draft" was actually built and used on existing Broadcom hardware, so it's not really a scratchpad: It's a published piece of software.
We could also quote Michael Buesch's email in full, or at least the non-technical parts, but all his wussy talk about how he's open to cooperation and relicensing would make us look pretty stupid to ask whether he has "no decency." So we only quote the somewhat harsh-sounding opening paragraph.
On the other hand, here's what the story looks like to me - a Linux user, but not one who's very passionate about the GPL:
1) OpenBSD developer takes GPL'd code and republishes it under an incompatible license.
2) Copyright holder goes public and complains about this but says he's open to find an amicable solution.
3) Theo de Raadt raises a stink of astronomical proportions over some etiquette issues or something.
4) OpenBSD unnecessarily loses the driver.
5) Linux developers go home unimpressed because a) the license issue is resolved; b) they don't give a damn about what hardware BSD does or doesn't support; c) they can be pretty confident that they won't look like the bad boys to anyone except rabid Raadt fanboys.
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod 3/25)
by Anonymous Coward (71.59.26.208) on Sat Apr 7 20:36:24 2007 (GMT)
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You people don't seem to get it: solving the issue quietly was never an option because the tainted code has already been distributed.
History can't be undone and published open source code can't be unpublished. It can only be assumed it will linger around forever:
cvs -danoncvs@anoncvs.de.openbsd.org:/cvs co -p -P -rOPENBSD_4_1 src/sys/dev/pci/if_bcw_pci.c
(or if you're lazy: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/sys/dev/pci/Attic/if_bcw_pci.c?rev=1.16&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup)
Oh, the horror: the unholy code still lives happily in OpenBSD CVS with a big fat BSD license sitting atop. So what's to stop someone from (accidentally) grabbing it and proliferating the infringement? Nothing, except maybe the very public knowledge that the code in question is re-licensed under BSD illegally.
This is a monumental screw-up for the BSD developer and the damage cannot be completely undone. Given the circumstances, Mr. Buesch's approach appears quite sensible, while the reactions are surreal: instead of apologies for having his copyrighted code distributed without permission, he gets axed for going public about it and hurting poor Mr. Glocker's feelings by none other than mr. empathy himself.
Geez, people, somebody needs a reality check...
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod -1/27)
by Andrew J. Stephen (125.238.41.237) on Sat Apr 7 20:36:27 2007 (GMT)
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> A little much, wouldn't you say? Yes, there's more, and I will not
> respond to the legal issues here. I am only interested in providing
> the backstory so that the Linux people may know what their ridiculous
> egos have stomped all over and destroyed.
>
>Mr. Buesch, have you no decency?
I cannot help but think that this question is better put to you and the others of your OpenBSD crowd who are blowing this out of all proportion.
A copyright was clearly violated and this was identified by (one of) the copyright holder(s) in a succinct and polite fashion. Mr. Buesch even offered to work with you and grant license to use /if/ you would only get down off your high-horses and talk to him about it. By responding with personal attacks you who are responsible are achieving little more than sealing the OpenBSD community's reputation as unreasonable and needlessly aggressive.
So, thanks for alienating another user. It is now clear to me that the OpenBSD community are willing and remorseless copyright violators. I will be rebuilding my OpenBSD server with a more ethical OS today.
Goodbye.
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod 4/16)
by Anonymous Coward (81.107.47.180) on Sat Apr 7 20:44:58 2007 (GMT)
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I hate to fan the flames here, but am I the only person on the planet who's noticed that the infringing code is still in the public CVS repository? Sure, it's deleted from the most recent revision, but still fully accessible by checking out older revisions. See here for just one example; the path was trivial to figure out from Marcus' email to the list notifying us of his decision:
http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/sys/dev/ic/Attic/bcw.c
It's entirely possible to completely strip files out of a CVS repository, but that's not what has happened here. So I tend to question the sincerity of some of those involved.
Get a grip, people.
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plagiarism (mod 2/14)
by Ian Monroe (70.243.252.57) on Sat Apr 7 21:22:45 2007 (GMT)
http://www.monroe.nu
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Assuming code really was copied and pasted, its a pretty clear case of straight up plagiarism. You can't take someone's code, stick it in yours, and just delete their copyright header. This is irrespective of license used, its really part of copyright itself. And its just unethical to do so.
Like if you turn in a paper thats half cited quotations, the teacher might give you an F. If you turn a paper thats half uncited quotations, you should be given an F for the entire class if not kicked out of school. Maybe its an issue of code not being given the same respect?
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver -- You F...ing idiots (mod -9/21)
by Anonymous Coward (69.66.53.30) on Sat Apr 7 22:50:10 2007 (GMT)
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> ...
> The Copyright holders of bcm43xx (which includes me) want to talk
> to you, OpenBSD bcw developers, about possible GPL license and therefore
> Copyright violations in your bcw driver.
> ...
Oh, yea, that really sounds venomous. He states that he wants to talk about copyright violations, and you want to crucify him because he points out that his code is being stolen. You F...ing IDIOTS!!!
So what if it was posted in a public forum, and not in private. Oh, we've embarassed the code thief. Pitty.
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod 5/17)
by Mark Woodward (24.91.171.78) (markw@mohawksoft.com) on Sat Apr 7 23:05:31 2007 (GMT)
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This BSD vs GPL debate is important.
I am a GPL supporter and I believe that the GPL is the only way freedom and access to our own software can be protected.
While I understand the BSD position, and on paper it seems quite noble.
The Broadcom people did not want to assist the development of this driver, so members of the Linux community worked hard and created one. Should broadcom be able to take this code that they did not help create, resisted in fact, and proprietize it to their own benefit? Essentially steal the work that was done?
By copying GPL code into BSD code, you are violating the letter and spirit of the author's intentions. If you copy BSD code into a GPL project, with propper annotation of course, you are still within the letter and spirit of the author's intentions. If you don't like that, maybe you need to change the BSD license.
The BSD crowd gives their code away, they take pride in doing so. That's OK if that is what they want to do. The GPL crowd shares their code. The GPL requires and enforces a level of sharing and community that the BSD license does not. IMHO the GPL is better.
The reason why this is important is that old saying: "Freedom is not free." Even the most peaceful communities and civilizations need laws, police, fences, and jails. There are powerful people and companies that would take our work and "embrace and extend" it until it is no longer usable by us, and we would be forced to pay for the privilege of using our code.
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod -11/25)
by Anonymous Coward (200.139.119.140) on Sat Apr 7 23:41:52 2007 (GMT)
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Its amazing how someone can misinterpret everything. This Theo has serious problems. I aways thought that these BSD people are insane to risk share they code with M$ and others (as tcp stack used until today). But, now IM SURE they are INSANE. Or maybe, they work for a bunch of companies that want them to THIEF GLPed code and mark it BSD, so these company can then say, we copied a BSD code, not GPL. If they robbed GPL code, its they problem, not our. Damn, lets ban BSD forever.
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod 1/15)
by jjohnson (24.84.49.76) (hroomba@yahoo.com) on Sat Apr 7 23:57:38 2007 (GMT)
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See, this is why I don't bother jumping into the free software pool as a dev, and why after several years as a user, I'm drifting away because software I'd like to see is delayed by shit like this.
Let me share a learning experience I witnessed. I was legal liaison at a non-technology manufacturer. A woman from marketing came to me and said that the contractor who was manufacturing the company's booth for the next trade show (a six figure deal) was going to sue us for breach of contract, but we can sue them back for the same. I called the lawyers to give them a heads up, and spoke on the phone with opposing counsel. The gist of the contractor's complaint was that we were about to get sued because the woman in question, while inspecting their work, said "this is all wrong, we're not paying you for this, we'll get your competitors to do it" and stormed out.
My brother, head of marketing, was out of town. When he returned and heard the story, the first thing he did was call the original contractor and say the following: "I understand that, while I was gone, there was some excitement. I'd like to throw a big bucket of cold water all over that. Your work is fine and we intend to complete the contract with you as originally discussed. Donna isn't overseeing this anymore."
That's the business world, where real money is involved, and ego getting in the way can be an expensive proposition. (Not that the business world doesn't have its share of ego-driven confrontations, but what I saw was an example of doing it right).
Not so, in the free software world, where a legitimate complaint about an admitted copyright violation turns into a voluminous attack on the character of a skilled developer. Yes, he could have complained privately, but what this looks like (to someone who doesn't care about the difference between the GPL and the BSD licences) is that Theo's baby got called out in public for making a mistake, and Theo (in typical form) goes nuclear and does more damage than good. Marcus, pace Theo, drama queens his way out when he'd been on the right track of "sorry, let me fix this as you suggest."
Consider an alternative scenario, where the BSD response is a polite apology for the error and public co-operation in resolving the issue by dual-licencing the relevent bits. In the end, the BSD community would have had a sterling example of maturity and commitment to its own ideals, and actually looked better than before.
When is the fine work of the OpenBSD project going to get the leader(s) it deserves?
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Re: bcw(4): The death of a driver (mod 6/16)
by Pieter Hulshoff (80.126.111.3) (phulshof@xs4all.nl) on Sun Apr 8 00:08:10 2007 (GMT)
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Michael Buesch <mb@...> writes:
> We have always made and still make a great effort to keep our code clean
> of any Copyright issues (cleanroom design). Please make sure you also do.
It seems like most of the discussion here is focused on how this situation could have been handled and whether or not it was a mistake. I believe the quote above is what matters most here.
If Open Source wishes to be taken seriously, then copyright violations need to be avoided. The way to do that professionally is by cleanroom design. If you use cleanroom design, this mistake could not even have been made! I think the fact that it happened shows a clear problem within the BSD development process for this project.
Even if the copying had not been done verbatim, and/or if the GPL lines had been changed before committing the files to CVS, it would still qualify as a derivative work, and it would still have qualified as a copyright violation. It seems to me that Theo has more serious issues on his hands here than complaining about how this issue should have been handled.
Kind regards,
Pieter Hulshoff
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bcw(4): The death of a driver
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