Contributed by deanna on from the no decency at all dept.
User A asks for a feature.
Overworked developer A responds with all the information user would need to add the feature himself.
Time passes.
Another call for participation goes out.
More time passes.
User B surfaces from nowhere and reveals that he's done the groundwork, and offers it to the community.
Developer B shows interest, and the serious work begins in earnest. Months pass, with scores and scores of commits being logged as newly re-focused developer works to finish adding this feature.
Now, if you've followed any of the links, you'll see that the original call for participation directed people to the existing Linux driver as a starting point. Nothing unusual here; it's what many of us would say is the single most important freedom in free software: freedom to study.
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. Bits and pieces of necessary information are gathered together while the work itself is being rounded out. If you've ever had to write a paper for school, you can think of it this way: the bibliography has not yet been written; in fact the citations themselves haven't even been decided on yet.
This activity continued for months. I watched closely, because it made me happy to see how well the community can work together for the common good.
And so yesterday I'm sure many in the community were equally stunned to see the message about its removal from the tree, and the thread where Marcus was so publicly attacked for his work which, to our community, was so clearly good-intentioned.
For those of you who only saw it in archives, please allow me to show you the full impact of this message when displayed with the usual headers in an actual mail reader - which is how it must have looked to Marcus Glocker.
From: Michael Buesch <mb>
Subject: OpenBSD bcw: Possible GPL license violation issues
Newsgroups: gmane.linux.kernel.wireless.general,
gmane.linux.drivers.bcm54xx.devel
To: Marcus Glocker <mglocker>,
Jon Simola <jsimola>,
Theo de Raadt <deraadt>,
Stefano Brivio <stefano.brivio>,
Martin Langer <martin>,
Danny van Dyk <kugelfang>,
Andreas Jaggi <andreas.jaggi>,
Larry Finger <larry.finger>,
Quaker.Fang
Cc: Johannes Berg <johannes>,
Joseph Jezak <josejx>,
John Linville <linville>,
Greg kh <greg>,
bcm43xx <list>,
linux-wireless <list>,
license-violation <list>
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 22:08:13 +0200
User-Agent: KMail/1.9.5
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.
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?
(Comments are closed)
By cruel (195.234.69.78) on
(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.
Comments
By cruel (195.234.69.78) on
> (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.
more information about GNU philosophy:
"It was also possible to bypass the copyright monitors by installing a modified system kernel. Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like debuggers--you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's root password. And neither the FBI nor Microsoft Support would tell you that.
Dan concluded that he couldn't simply lend Lissa his computer. But he couldn't refuse to help her, because he loved her. Every chance to speak with her filled him with delight. And that she chose him to ask for help, that could mean she loved him too.
Dan resolved the dilemma by doing something even more unthinkable--he lent her the computer, and told her his password. This way, if Lissa read his books, Central Licensing would think he was reading them. It was still a crime, but the SPA would not automatically find out about it. They would only find out if Lissa reported him".
source is "The Right to Read" by R. Stallman
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
R. Stallman, can Marcus read and learn freely or he can not? bcm43xx people think he can not. so what freedom is for GNU people?
Comments
By cruel (195.234.69.78) on
"The same fact stands as an irrevocable barrier to SCO's claim that ``Linux'' violates SCO's copyright on UNIX source code. Copyright, as the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized, covers expressions, not ideas. Copyright on source code covers not how a program works, but only the specific language in which the functionality is expressed. A program written from scratch to express the function of an existing program in a new way does not infringe the original program's copyright. GNU and Linux duplicate some aspects of UNIX functionality, but are independent bodies, not copies of existing expressions. But even if SCO could show that some portions of its UNIX source code were copied into the kernel, the claim of copyright infringement would fail, because SCO has itself distributed the kernel under GPL. By doing so, SCO licensed everyone everywhere to copy, modify, and redistribute that code. SCO cannot now turn around and argue that it sold people code under GPL, guaranteeing their right to copy, modify and redistribute anything included, but that it somehow did not license the copying and redistribution of any copyrighted material of their own which that code contained".
Source is FSF Statement on SCO v. IBM
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/sco/sco-v-ibm.html
Just notice this "A program written from scratch to express the function of an existing program in a new way does not infringe the original program's copyright. GNU and Linux duplicate some aspects of UNIX functionality, but are independent bodies, not copies of existing expressions".
Oops?
Comments
By Matt (82.69.27.224) on
>
> "The same fact stands as an irrevocable barrier to SCO's claim that ``Linux'' violates SCO's copyright on UNIX source code. Copyright, as the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized, covers expressions, not ideas. Copyright on source code covers not how a program works, but only the specific language in which the functionality is expressed. A program written from scratch to express the function of an existing program in a new way does not infringe the original program's copyright. GNU and Linux duplicate some aspects of UNIX functionality, but are independent bodies, not copies of existing expressions. But even if SCO could show that some portions of its UNIX source code were copied into the kernel, the claim of copyright infringement would fail, because SCO has itself distributed the kernel under GPL. By doing so, SCO licensed everyone everywhere to copy, modify, and redistribute that code. SCO cannot now turn around and argue that it sold people code under GPL, guaranteeing their right to copy, modify and redistribute anything included, but that it somehow did not license the copying and redistribution of any copyrighted material of their own which that code contained".
>
> Source is FSF Statement on SCO v. IBM
>
> http://www.fsf.org/licensing/sco/sco-v-ibm.html
>
> Just notice this "A program written from scratch to express the function of an existing program in a new way does not infringe the original program's copyright. GNU and Linux duplicate some aspects of UNIX functionality, but are independent bodies, not copies of existing expressions".
>
> Oops?
>
I thought the problem was line for line copying? no? Last I checked verbatim copying of copyright code is a breach of copyright unless such action is granted in a license.
Matt
By ferry (82.95.241.251) on
first and foremost one to both communities: GROW UP!
Both sides have made mistakes, grow up and admit your mistakes, get it over with and resolve the issue.
It's as simple as that!!!
The only bottom line is that the OpenBSD people quite obviously included GPL'ed code and relicensed it to an incompatible license, which is not allowed under the circumstances surrounding this driver.
I've read the entire thread on the mailing list last night and the thing that dawns on me is that the OpenBSD people immediately interpreted the first mail negatively without giving it at least the benefit of the doubt. It seems to me that the GPL people were genuinely trying to establish collaboration. Especially Theo, being the lead, should be more professional than he has shown in his responses. The only thing he has done is rub the other side the wrong way, I've read no positive response from him whatsoever.
You guys are all screaming about how bad this is for the reputation of 'open-source' but all this would not have happened if you were a bit more mature and admitted your mistakes straight away (both sides).
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (80.240.175.22) on
It was one man, actually, Theo "Asshole" de Raadt. Marcus' initial reply was the only sane one from the OpenBSD side.
On a side note:
Q: How do you notice an OpenBSD guy has his back against the wall in an argument?
A: He mentiones OpenSSH!
Ha-ha!
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on
Theo's initial response was fairly reserved, he was more pissed that the situation had gone public straight away rather than discussing the issues first.
By Anonymous Coward (12.21.201.252) on
as a Constitutionalist, i cannot accept this statement by Stallman/Lincoln in a universal sense - all freedom stems from private property in the physical sense - private property is the only place the law-of-the-land is your own law, or the laws of God, or whatever you wish, as the case may be. without private property, there are no truly human rights, only human controls.
but i think there is a fundamental difference in terms of intellectual/intangible property because this kind of property only has benefit to man in a collective sense - the utilization of knowledge for the advancement of knowledge. there is the loss of licensing fees when such property is considered to have no private owner, but on the other hand, restrictions on the free-flow of knowledge holds back man in a
collective sense. hopefully, free-energy and other developments will make this kind of conflict of interest mute someday - the day when we easily can acquire all the elements needed to sustain our lives (free-energy, etc) and plentiful free time in life to advance knowledge for pleasure.
By cruel (195.234.69.78) on
By Didier Wiroth (194.154.200.108) didier.wiroth@mcesr.etat.lu on http://www.wiroth.net
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 !!!
Comments
By Joel (66.166.120.11) on
> 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 !!!
>
>
If Theo would have the decency to shut up and let Marcus deal with the linux developers, now BSD will not be in the hall-of-shame, the broadcom free driver for BSD would be rolling.
If Michael notified few of the developers by CC of his invitation to Marcus, ... Theo made it known to the entire internet with his notable tantrums and offences that clearly tell everyone reading: "How dare you linux people try to tell us that we took your code, licensed under BSD, and not shut the F** up about ?"
Theo is the one who made up all this scandal, forbid Marcus to be a man and deal with the damaged party, made him delete the code to punish.... the BSD community. And now tells everyone who believes in him that he and Marcus are the victims.
Nice, Mr. Theo, Microsoft will be ... NO, in fact IS pleased with you waging war against Linux. They might even give you a hand to step up the podium, next to Novell....
Comments
By Can Erkin Acar (81.215.44.43) canacar@ on
> and let Marcus deal with the linux developers,
> now BSD will not be in the hall-of-shame,
> the broadcom free driver for BSD would be rolling.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
The Linux developers had no decency to privately approach
Marcus. They had to broadcast it to the whole community.
> If Michael notified few of the developers
> by CC of his invitation to Marcus, ...
By "a few developers" you mean one general purpose
linux wireless discussion list, and the license-violations
list, in addition to his own development mailing list *and*
a few non-developers including people from Solaris?
> Theo made it known to the entire internet with his
> notable tantrums and offences that clearly tell everyone
> reading: "How dare you linux people try to tell us that
> we took your code, licensed under BSD, and not shut the F** up about ?"
Theo only replied to the same lists. So if it is the "entire internet"
as you put it, then the original mail from Michael Buesch already
announced: "Here a BSD developer stealing code from Linux. We
caught him. He is obviously a thief and must be punished." to the
whole internet.
> Theo is the one who made up all this scandal, forbid Marcus
> to be a man and deal with the damaged party, made him delete
> the code to punish.... the BSD community. And now tells
> everyone who believes in him that he and Marcus are the victims.
Now, if Marcus had the intention of stealing the code and get away
with it, he would possibly have come around and made a deal and
even relicense the code to save his position and the code. This is
what you seem to expect because you think he obviously stole the code.
What you describe is probably what a programmer paid to write
the driver would do. If pressed for time/resources, he would
shortcut the process by using part (or even all) of the GPL driver.
And would try to save his ass by making deals when/if caught.
But you see, for Marcus this is a hobby. He is doing it because
he likes the challenge. He is trying to convert the incomplete
(reverse engineered) documentation AND the techniques used in
the Linux driver into a BSD driver. He does not think he is
doing anything wrong because he is using parts of the linux driver
to fill in the missing parts (about %5 of the driver code perhaps),
while he is working on other parts. He will be replacing
the Linux code with his own. And this is a %100 legal development
process. Perhaps the only mistake he did is to do his work
on the in a public source code repository (OpenBSD CVS).
It was a mistake, which could have been corrected by a single
private mail to Marcus. Including few other related developers
and Theo to CC: would also be fine. However broadcasting it
to the whole internet left Marcus with no choice but to delete
the driver. And no, Theo did not force him to. It was Marcus'
choice. He had no motivation left to work on the driver after
the public flogging.
You see, there is no code to save. It is Marcus' driver.
We are already used to avoiding Broadcam wireless, since
it does not work. There are plenty of good wireless chipsets
around. If someone feels up to the challenge, he may decide
to give it another try at one point in time. Bu nobody is (was)
holding his breath.
> Nice, Mr. Theo, Microsoft will be ... NO, in fact IS pleased
> with you waging war against Linux. They might even give you
> a hand to step up the podium, next to Novell....
This is not a war against anything. It is just his way of saying
that the way Michael Buesch handled the situation was wrong.
If, in the end, this made Linux people look bad, well, too bad.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.169.167.212) on
> The Linux developers had no decency to privately approach
> Marcus. They had to broadcast it to the whole community.
>
Given Theo's attitude, I'm not surprised, either.
> It was a mistake, which could have been corrected by a single
> private mail to Marcus. Including few other related developers
> and Theo to CC: would also be fine. However broadcasting it
> to the whole internet left Marcus with no choice but to delete
> the driver. And no, Theo did not force him to. It was Marcus'
> choice. He had no motivation left to work on the driver after
> the public flogging.
Did Michael really know that it was just Marcus--only Marcus--that was working on this driver? Could Michael be 100% sure that Marcus wasn't getting some kind of help? Of course not. Furthermore, Michael's letter was definitely not what I would call a "flogging". Not even close.
> You see, there is no code to save. It is Marcus' driver.
> We are already used to avoiding Broadcam wireless, since
> it does not work. There are plenty of good wireless chipsets
> around. If someone feels up to the challenge, he may decide
> to give it another try at one point in time. Bu nobody is (was)
> holding his breath.
I'm with you there. I despise Broadcom wireless and avoid it like the plague on all my personal gear. What they issue me at work, I have to use, but not so at home.
> > Nice, Mr. Theo, Microsoft will be ... NO, in fact IS pleased
> > with you waging war against Linux. They might even give you
> > a hand to step up the podium, next to Novell....
>
OK, this was not called for. No OpenBSD developer deserves to be compared to the traitor Novell. If you want to critize that comment, then I'm with you there, too.
> This is not a war against anything. It is just his way of saying
> that the way Michael Buesch handled the situation was wrong.
>
> If, in the end, this made Linux people look bad, well, too bad.
>
But it doesn't. It makes the OpenBSD people look bad. Very bad. And given how they escalated it (Theo especially), they deserve to look bad on this one.
By Joel (66.166.120.11) on
> > and let Marcus deal with the linux developers,
> > now BSD will not be in the hall-of-shame,
> > the broadcom free driver for BSD would be rolling.
>
> You have no idea what you are talking about.
> The Linux developers had no decency to privately approach
> Marcus. They had to broadcast it to the whole community.
>
> > If Michael notified few of the developers
> > by CC of his invitation to Marcus, ...
>
> By "a few developers" you mean one general purpose
> linux wireless discussion list, and the license-violations
> list, in addition to his own development mailing list *and*
> a few non-developers including people from Solaris?
>
> > Theo made it known to the entire internet with his
> > notable tantrums and offences that clearly tell everyone
> > reading: "How dare you linux people try to tell us that
> > we took your code, licensed under BSD, and not shut the F** up about ?"
>
> Theo only replied to the same lists. So if it is the "entire internet"
> as you put it, then the original mail from Michael Buesch already
> announced: "Here a BSD developer stealing code from Linux. We
> caught him. He is obviously a thief and must be punished." to the
> whole internet.
>
> > Theo is the one who made up all this scandal, forbid Marcus
> > to be a man and deal with the damaged party, made him delete
> > the code to punish.... the BSD community. And now tells
> > everyone who believes in him that he and Marcus are the victims.
>
> Now, if Marcus had the intention of stealing the code and get away
> with it, he would possibly have come around and made a deal and
> even relicense the code to save his position and the code. This is
> what you seem to expect because you think he obviously stole the code.
>
> What you describe is probably what a programmer paid to write
> the driver would do. If pressed for time/resources, he would
> shortcut the process by using part (or even all) of the GPL driver.
> And would try to save his ass by making deals when/if caught.
>
> But you see, for Marcus this is a hobby. He is doing it because
> he likes the challenge. He is trying to convert the incomplete
> (reverse engineered) documentation AND the techniques used in
> the Linux driver into a BSD driver. He does not think he is
> doing anything wrong because he is using parts of the linux driver
> to fill in the missing parts (about %5 of the driver code perhaps),
> while he is working on other parts. He will be replacing
> the Linux code with his own. And this is a %100 legal development
> process. Perhaps the only mistake he did is to do his work
> on the in a public source code repository (OpenBSD CVS).
>
> It was a mistake, which could have been corrected by a single
> private mail to Marcus. Including few other related developers
> and Theo to CC: would also be fine. However broadcasting it
> to the whole internet left Marcus with no choice but to delete
> the driver. And no, Theo did not force him to. It was Marcus'
> choice. He had no motivation left to work on the driver after
> the public flogging.
>
> You see, there is no code to save. It is Marcus' driver.
> We are already used to avoiding Broadcam wireless, since
> it does not work. There are plenty of good wireless chipsets
> around. If someone feels up to the challenge, he may decide
> to give it another try at one point in time. Bu nobody is (was)
> holding his breath.
>
> > Nice, Mr. Theo, Microsoft will be ... NO, in fact IS pleased
> > with you waging war against Linux. They might even give you
> > a hand to step up the podium, next to Novell....
>
> This is not a war against anything. It is just his way of saying
> that the way Michael Buesch handled the situation was wrong.
>
> If, in the end, this made Linux people look bad, well, too bad.
>
>
Interesting: what you are actually saying is that what Marcus did was ok.
Copy code, put it under BSD license (as a hobby), not notifying the copyright holders should be a common practice.
It is not ok. Deal with it and learn to respect other people's works.
Your bickering is not doing the BSD any good or honor.
The only thing I hope is that you are not a BSD guy, if you are, you are just smearing the entire community.
Comments
By Can Erkin Acar (81.214.152.16) canacar@ on
No, this is not what I am saying. What Marcus did was NOT OK.
It was also NOT THEFT. It was a mistake. He should not have
committed code to the public repository before he replaced all
GPL code with his own.
> Copy code, put it under BSD license (as a hobby), not notifying the copyright holders should be a common practice.
Try to read it again. I am just describing what actually happened.
In hopes that some people will understand that this was honestly
a mistake on one developers part. What he did was a mistake, and
he fixed it the best way he can.
There is one more mistake. Done by Michael Buesch.
This is, in fact, the whole point the discussion.
He totally failed to manage this incident of copyright violation.
He made the incident public without contacting Marcus and/or Theo
privately. He has every right to do so. But it is not nice.
He lacks empathy. He assumed that Marcus stole the code, and
reacted violently. Perhaps his exact words were not so harsh.
Some even say he was polite. But his mail implied that Marcus
stole the code. Need proof? Just look at news title of the
"media" that picked up the story.
Even the act of offering to relicense, which many people considered
as kind, is almost an insult. He implicitly assumes that, without
his code, Marcus can not move forward and had to steal it to make
things work.
> It is not ok. Deal with it and learn to respect other people's works.
You got the point all wrong. Nobody says what Marcus did was ok.
It is not. If you did some research, you would find that
OpenBSD takes license and copyright issues most seriously.
* We have removed ipf (packet filter) from the tree as soon as
its author decided that its license does not allow modification.
* Following that, we have done a license audit of all the base system
and contacted the authors of every code with no/questionable license,
fixed the ones we could. Removed/replaced the others we could not.
* We do not have djb software in ports (3rd party application
repository), since his license requires us to place his utilities
to non-standard locations, and we do not want that.
* We strongly oppose blobs, they come with a lot of strings, not to
mention other problems and dangers.
* We do not distribute firmware that do not allow redistribution.
You can not say some of these things about most of the Linux
distributions (or even some other BSDs) out there.
This is why OpenBSD people reacted to the handling of this incident.
One single private mail would have solved the problem, perhaps
more favorably for everyone, without all this nonsense.
> Your bickering is not doing the BSD any good or honor.
> The only thing I hope is that you are not a BSD guy,
> if you are, you are just smearing the entire community.
I guess you are a Linux zealot. Lack of empathy and comprehension just shows.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (66.72.161.60) on
>
> No, this is not what I am saying. What Marcus did was NOT OK.
> It was also NOT THEFT. It was a mistake. He should not have
> committed code to the public repository before he replaced all
> GPL code with his own.
I agree it is likely the case that it was a mistake. He made an error in judgment by committing to a public CVS code he know had GPL code mixed in.
> > Copy code, put it under BSD license (as a hobby), not notifying the copyright holders should be a common practice.
>
> Try to read it again. I am just describing what actually happened.
> In hopes that some people will understand that this was honestly
> a mistake on one developers part. What he did was a mistake, and
> he fixed it the best way he can.
>
> There is one more mistake. Done by Michael Buesch.
> This is, in fact, the whole point the discussion.
> He totally failed to manage this incident of copyright violation.
The failure was not his alone. Yes he should have contacted Macrus privately first, but Theo took it to a whole different level. Theo mismanaged the incident far far more than Michael did.
> He made the incident public without contacting Marcus and/or Theo
> privately. He has every right to do so.
Yes, he did have every right to do so, while Marcus did not have the right to incorporate his GPL code into some BSD code. Just so we are clear on who the did what he had a right to and who didn't.
>But it is not nice.
> He lacks empathy.
He could certainly have done it privately initially and that would have been much preferable.
>He assumed that Marcus stole the code, and
> reacted violently.
He assumed Markus knew he had incorporated the GPL code and published it. He never mentioned theft or called Macrus a thief. If you read that in the letter then that is your interpretation that you are adding to i t. He did *NOT* react violently. How you get that from the letter is amazing and shows how you have an extremely one-sided view of things. It was a very civil and polite letter offering the potential to re-release some of the code under a BSD license. Ever had someone start beating you up in a bar and suddenly stop to ask if he could buy you a beer during the brawl? It wasn't violent. It was polite.
>Perhaps his exact words were not so harsh.
No. They were not. Any harshness was introduced by people who wanted to interpret things in the worst possible way. You and Theo fall into this category.
> Some even say he was polite. But his mail implied that Marcus
> stole the code. Need proof? Just look at news title of the
> "media" that picked up the story.
Someone else interpreting things badly is *proof* of his intentions???? Please. We all know "media" never do anything to spice up a story. Please.
> Even the act of offering to relicense, which many people considered
> as kind, is almost an insult. He implicitly assumes that, without
> his code, Marcus can not move forward and had to steal it to make
> things work.
Where did it say he assumed that? He offered to re-release some code under the BSD license to save Marcus the time and hassle of trying to re-code it himself. Any assumption that Marcus couldn't move forward without stealing the code is an assumption of intention on your part. Why you keep reading things into his letter that aren't there I don't know. Why do you have to assume he has the worst intentions in every single phrase? He's offering help. Does that seem like he wants to be as mean as possible? No. Did he attack Marcus personally? no.
> You got the point all wrong. Nobody says what Marcus did was ok.
> It is not. If you did some research, you would find that
> OpenBSD takes license and copyright issues most seriously.
Then that should have been the focal point of any reply to a civial take-down request. "Oops, we goofed. Sorry, we'll take down the offending code and post a note to let other folks know not to use it in anything BSD if they grabbed a copy already."
> * We have removed ipf (packet filter) from the tree as soon as
> its author decided that its license does not allow modification.
>
> * Following that, we have done a license audit of all the base system
> and contacted the authors of every code with no/questionable license,
> fixed the ones we could. Removed/replaced the others we could not.
>
> * We do not have djb software in ports (3rd party application
> repository), since his license requires us to place his utilities
> to non-standard locations, and we do not want that.
>
> * We strongly oppose blobs, they come with a lot of strings, not to
> mention other problems and dangers.
>
> * We do not distribute firmware that do not allow redistribution.
>
> You can not say some of these things about most of the Linux
> distributions (or even some other BSDs) out there.
>
> This is why OpenBSD people reacted to the handling of this incident.
> One single private mail would have solved the problem, perhaps
> more favorably for everyone, without all this nonsense.
The nonsense could have been entirely avoided if Theo had either stayed out of it and let Marcus take things down himself and apologize for the mistake, or he could have said as above "oops, our-bad. We'll take down the offending stuff and get back to you if we decide it might save a lot of time to get some of the stuff re-licensed". That would have been th e mature, adult, and responsible response. Instead a flame-fest ensued with WAY WAY more direct personal attacks on Michael, while the only personal attacks in Michaels where ones that you read into them.
> > Your bickering is not doing the BSD any good or honor.
> > The only thing I hope is that you are not a BSD guy,
> > if you are, you are just smearing the entire community.
>
> I guess you are a Linux zealot. Lack of empathy and comprehension just shows.
Your reading TONS of intentions into the letter that weren't there, and supporting the flamefest shows that you are the zealot.
By sthen (85.158.44.149) on
> on the in a public source code repository (OpenBSD CVS).
yes... that's the problem with making available access to development code, it will come under some definitions of 'distribute'.
If, say, broadcom want to develop their own driver in the same way as Marcus was doing, they're free to do so, as long as the development code stays on a private repository until the relevant parts are rewritten.
But then, if that code is made public - accidentally (broken firewall rule?) or maliciously (intentionally leaked to cause trouble?) - does that then count as 'distribution'? The GPL does not define the term.
I bet there are plenty of people and companies who have private modifications to GPL code, or in-house software with parts of GPL code copied and pasted in. So long as it remains private, all's ok, but, well...as you can see, don't count on receiving a private warning first if there's a problem.
By Anonymous Coward (82.69.27.224) on
> > and let Marcus deal with the linux developers,
> > now BSD will not be in the hall-of-shame,
> > the broadcom free driver for BSD would be rolling.
>
> You have no idea what you are talking about.
> The Linux developers had no decency to privately approach
> Marcus. They had to broadcast it to the whole community.
Well the code was broadcast to the whole community.. If someone is wronged in public, it's not too much to ask for the grievance to be aired in public.
>
> > If Michael notified few of the developers
> > by CC of his invitation to Marcus, ...
>
> By "a few developers" you mean one general purpose
> linux wireless discussion list, and the license-violations
> list, in addition to his own development mailing list *and*
> a few non-developers including people from Solaris?
Yeah, the Cc list was a little long...
>
> > Theo made it known to the entire internet with his
> > notable tantrums and offences that clearly tell everyone
> > reading: "How dare you linux people try to tell us that
> > we took your code, licensed under BSD, and not shut the F**
> > up about ?"
>
> Theo only replied to the same lists. So if it is the "entire internet"
> as you put it, then the original mail from Michael Buesch already
> announced: "Here a BSD developer stealing code from Linux. We
> caught him. He is obviously a thief and must be punished." to the
> whole internet.
The first email said nothing of the sort. It said, we think there is a problem and we need to talk to someone.
[snip] [snip]
>
> If, in the end, this made Linux people look bad, well, too bad.
>
If in the end, this made OpenBSD people look bad, well, too bad.
By Anonymous Coward (83.250.163.50) on
> doing anything wrong because he is using parts of the linux driver
> to fill in the missing parts (about %5 of the driver code perhaps),
> while he is working on other parts. He will be replacing
> the Linux code with his own. And this is a %100 legal development
> process.
I'm not sure it is. This is because when you incorporate GPL code into your work, the whole work becomes covered by the GPL. Even when you finally remove the last part of the copied code, the work is still a derivative work, and thus covered by the GPL. This is because it was based on a work covered by the GPL (the last revision that contained any copied code). And I guess that this is not what you want.
IANAL though, but my guess is that this applies to you too.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.66.14.254) on
By Anonymous Coward (81.83.81.251) on
Comments
By Matthias Andree (80.145.6.70) on
The original offense was theft of code, not asking to resolve the license violation. Keep that in mind.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (71.138.89.50) on
Funny, I read the lists and thought it was infringement.
By Wokatakamekodong (87.234.181.144) on
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.
Comments
By cruel (195.234.69.78) on
>
> 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.
wow! and bcm43xx guys decided to crucify Marcus in the name of this invetion? how american...
Comments
By Wokatakamekodong (87.234.181.144) on
He proved to me to be socially unbearable in real life but all I care about is the tree's license and not what is done to him by people with legal rights to their own work. They went public? Tough.
My comment about Theo and licensing is all about what is in the tree and can I trust it to be BSD licensed (the GNU stuff aside). Glocker corrupted this trust and hence damaged the BSD community.
Yet, Theo's flamewar is not helping. He has to protect his men, ok, but his arguments over inhuman bla bla are unprofessional. Right, he doesn't owe anyone anything. Please strike a deal or ignore other open source people when you have to, but DON'T ignore their legal rights.
Pulling bcw(4) was the right decision for the time being.
Comments
By cruel (195.234.69.78) on
"his men"!? oh, Lord... don't you think openbsd developers are slaves?
blah-blah is in R. Stallmans writeups:
"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".
You, even do not understand what theses "public important freedoms" are.
Comments
By Joel (66.166.120.11) on
>
> "his men"!? oh, Lord... don't you think openbsd developers are slaves?
>
I would not know that, but from what I read.... it seems that Theo does not like to leave "his men" to talk for themselves.
Like with Marcus... I only seen one reply from Marcus, Theo was the one damaging BSD's reputation on all that discussion.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.66.14.254) on
In any case Theo is like your buddy at the party that has your back.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (66.72.161.60) on
>
> In any case Theo is like your buddy at the party that has your back.
>
No, in this case he's like the drunk at the bar that decides to pick a fight with the guy that told his buddy to stop bumping his arm and spilling his beer.
The original author sent a civil letter being very polite and offered to possible re-license some of his code under the BSD license. Theo jumped down his through and made tons of personal attacks on him for daring to point out the problem and offer to help. In case you didn't notice, this isn't good behavior. It's much much worse than someone pointing out the real problem to begin with, let alone with an offer of help.
By Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120) on
No, it is only a copyright violation. There is no theft involved anywhere.
Comments
By Ray Percival (sng) on http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=search&sort=time&query=sng
>
> No, it is only a copyright violation. There is no theft involved anywhere.
No see. You don't understand. That's only important when talking about music, movies, TV, etc. When talking about code it magically becomes theft. This is because code and the GPL are moral crusades.
Comments
By Pol (66.130.12.239) on
> >
> > No, it is only a copyright violation. There is no theft involved anywhere.
>
> No see. You don't understand. That's only important when talking about music, movies, TV, etc. When talking about code it magically becomes theft. This is because code and the GPL are moral crusades.
>
I laugh every time I see that argument. I buy my music/movies/software/etc so you cannot immolate me for what I'm about to say... I think it IS theft in both case, but if the RIAA came to you asking to resolve the issue by paying back the albums you stole, and delete those you don't want, instead of suing you for hundreds of thousands, what would you do?
If you take an artist's work without telling the artist, for making say templates for myspace pages. In this case, the artist came to you, tells you that he wouldn't mind you using certain parts but you'd have to get his acceptance on a case by case practice.
As much as I know, it doesn't matter the mean, the message wasn't to insult the BSD devs or to hang anyone, in any way. Michael _should_ have sent this to Marcus and Theo (and acceptably the linux wireless dev list). He _didnt_. Get over it and resolve the issue.
And I sincerely think that would have gotten 5-6 emails total has Marcus agreed to Michael in a first reply. No slashdot, no ars technica, no bad publicity from anyone. Mostly unnoticed, and probably no "We won the war!" from any linux fans.
Comments
By Ray Percival (sng) on http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=search&sort=time&query=sng
The simple fact of the matter is that you are wrong. There is no evidence or support for the idea that copyright infringement as theft argument in the .us or .ca code or in any case law. Even the *AAs know better than that which is why all their suits are CIVIL and not criminal.
By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on
I often buy an artist's work without telling the artist
By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on
The bcm43xx stuff is just a reverse engineered version of the Broadcom driver. Reverse engineering is termed theft under most laws.
Marcus was merely premature in removing the GPL license, had he been left to his own devices ( pun intended ) it would have hopefully reached a point when he could have removed the GPL licensing cleanly.
I fail to see how it's alright for bcm43xx to be reverse engineered, but it's not alright for others to reverse engineer from bcm43xx. The bcm43xx guys seemed to be happy enough for that to happen, they just went about it the wrong way.
On a final note, as bcm43xx is reverse engineered from Broadcom, yet bcm43xx includes "enhancements" that they don't want Broadcom to use, is a little rich considering that they wouldn't have the innovation if they hadn't been reverse engineering Broadcom's driver in the first place.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (130.49.222.56) on
Reverse engineering is legal under most, if not all jurisdictions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering
Copying code (which is what you are implying) is not.
> Marcus was merely premature in removing the GPL license, had he been left to his own devices ( pun intended ) it would have hopefully reached a point when he could have removed the GPL licensing cleanly.
> I fail to see how it's alright for bcm43xx to be reverse engineered, but it's not alright for others to reverse engineer from bcm43xx. The bcm43xx guys seemed to be happy enough for that to happen, they just went about it the wrong way.
Marcus' driver was not reverse engineered. He copied code from bcm43xx to speed up development. This is not allowed. bcm43xx was written from the specs. If it hadn't been, broadcom would have sued or c&d'd them by now.
By Anonymous Coward (85.212.16.96) on
>
> The bcm43xx stuff is just a reverse engineered version of the Broadcom driver. Reverse engineering is termed theft under most laws.
>
> Marcus was merely premature in removing the GPL license, had he been left to his own devices ( pun intended ) it would have hopefully reached a point when he could have removed the GPL licensing cleanly.
>
> I fail to see how it's alright for bcm43xx to be reverse engineered, but it's not alright for others to reverse engineer from bcm43xx. The bcm43xx guys seemed to be happy enough for that to happen, they just went about it the wrong way.
>
> On a final note, as bcm43xx is reverse engineered from Broadcom, yet bcm43xx includes "enhancements" that they don't want Broadcom to use, is a little rich considering that they wouldn't have the innovation if they hadn't been reverse engineering Broadcom's driver in the first place.
hahahahahahahahahaha, hahahahahahahahahah, hahahahahah, haha!
You made my day! That was one of the funniest trollposts in this whole discussion. :D
(Don't say that you really believe it's right what you are talking. You might make a fool out of yourself)
By Jason Dixon (70.17.17.155) jason@dixongroup.net on http://www.dixongroup.net/
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.
Comments
By cruel (195.234.69.78) on
>
> * 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.
GPLelist Michael Beusch should read more R. Stallman's shit about how freedom can be stalled...
By Anonymous Coward (155.212.206.114) on
Comments
By cruel (195.234.69.78) on
GPLelists know nothing about GNU philosophy. It is a public fact what I can discuss because I do not want to lie myself and others.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gpl-american-way.html
By Anonymous Coward (202.45.110.141) on
>
> * 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.
What a joke. There's no way what Marcus did was a "mistake". Or if he did, why did he get approval from other openbsd developers? Or were those commits from him "unreviewed" (unlike many others)? How could be "accidently" commit the changes to cvs.openbsd.org? The claim that it was an "accident" is like Clinton saying what Monica did was not an act of sex.
The truth of it is that OpenBSD has been caught with its hand in the cookie car of using code from other operating systems without respecting their copyright.
And the only way to deal with Theo is in public, because otherwise he'll be an even ruder ass than he has on this topic in public and those who have to deal with it are under a moral obligation to not disclose it.
The Linux folks have done everything right here.
Comments
By cruel (195.234.69.78) on
what if you are completely wrong with this assumption? just imagine for one second.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.169.167.212) on
>
> what if you are completely wrong with this assumption? just imagine for one second.
>
Unfortunately, he's not wrong. I've had dealings with Theo in private. He does indeed act like an even ruder ass in private email.
Comments
By Dan Farrell (thedanno) on http://danno.appliedi.net/drupal/
> >
> > what if you are completely wrong with this assumption? just imagine for one second.
> >
>
> Unfortunately, he's not wrong. I've had dealings with Theo in private. He does indeed act like an even ruder ass in private email.
It sounds like you are both missing the point. Theo didn't write the driver, Marcus did. The fact that you keep mentioning Theo proves the point further... that Buesch didn't approach --Marcus-- (not Theo) privately about this first.
Do you know how Marcus responds privately? That should be the question. And the answer would be a resounding 'NO' because no one ever did approach him privately... that's the problem.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (61.119.253.39) on
> approach him privately... that's the problem.
So, the person who purloins the code should be treated with tact and decency?
And if the person whose code was taken decides to go public, he should be crucified?
Funny values system you have there.
Comments
By Dan Farrell (thedanno) on http://danno.appliedi.net/drupal/
> > approach him privately... that's the problem.
>
> So, the person who purloins the code should be treated with tact and decency?
>
> And if the person whose code was taken decides to go public, he should be crucified?
>
> Funny values system you have there.
>
So Marcus stole it? You say he's a thief?
Funny values system YOU have there.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (71.59.26.208) on
> So Marcus stole it? You say he's a thief?
what else do you call taking someone else's code and distributing it without permission? the burden is on him to prove it was an accident, not on everybody else to prove it was not. besides, accident or not, he still owes a big apology to the copyright owners. instead we're served this load of BS about hurt feelings by mr Empathy De Raadt himself. grow a pair people and take responsibility for your shit.
Comments
By Dan Farrell (thedanno) on http://danno.appliedi.net/drupal/
> > So Marcus stole it? You say he's a thief?
>
> what else do you call taking someone else's code and distributing it without permission? the burden is on him to prove it was an accident, not on everybody else to prove it was not. besides, accident or not, he still owes a big apology to the copyright owners. instead we're served this load of BS about hurt feelings by mr Empathy De Raadt himself. grow a pair people and take responsibility for your shit.
Marcus made a mistake. Theo nor Marcus nor anyone else ever disputed that.
So there's your 'pair' for you.
It's about how you deal with people. You're missing the forest for the trees.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (130.49.222.56) on
> So there's your 'pair' for you.
>
> It's about how you deal with people. You're missing the forest for the trees.
No, it's misdirection on Theo's side to make sure nobody's looking at the real issue, which is that a long-time contributor like Marcus was knowingly copying GPL'd code.
Seems to me that he should have known better than that.
By Open Wookie (openwookie) on
> > So Marcus stole it? You say he's a thief?
>
> what else do you call taking someone else's code and distributing it without permission?
Lets get fucking real here. The code was not distributed. Period.
It wasn't released. Yes, it was on a public CVS, but who fucking downloaded it? Other OpenBSD developers, a few Linux devs, and maybe a few testers who own Broadcom hardware and want to submit their dmesg. The code wasn't in a state that it would be useful to ANYONE. No one would ever want to distribute binaries derived from the code, so the GPL is irrelevant.
Michael Buesch is either an asshole or a moron. CC'ing four mailing lists over such a small issue was either an asshole move intended to provoke a response, or it was done because Michael is an anal, self important, socially-retarded moron.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (71.199.122.57) on
Yes, lets.
> The code was not distributed. Period.
> It wasn't released. Yes, it was on a public CVS, but who fucking downloaded it? Other OpenBSD developers, a few Linux devs, and maybe a few testers who own Broadcom hardware and want to submit their dmesg. The code wasn't in a state that it would be useful to ANYONE. No one would ever want to distribute binaries derived from the code, so the GPL is irrelevant.
This post alone is enough to contradict that. Please don't be stupid:
http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?messageID=108007
And even if there wasn't evidence for this, would you say the same thing if BSD code was found in an in progress Linux driver with the BSD header removed?
Yeah, I don't think so.
Michael made the right decision to go public with this, as much as it sucks that he did for OpenBSD. Marcus and Theo made the wrong decision to delete the driver and attack Michael instead of working with him to get the driver finished and we have only them to blame for the lack of support for bcm43xx cards in *BSD.
Comments
By Open Wookie (openwookie) on
>
> Yes, lets.
>
> > The code was not distributed. Period.
> > It wasn't released. Yes, it was on a public CVS, but who fucking downloaded it? Other OpenBSD developers, a few Linux devs, and maybe a few testers who own Broadcom hardware and want to submit their dmesg. The code wasn't in a state that it would be useful to ANYONE. No one would ever want to distribute binaries derived from the code, so the GPL is irrelevant.
>
> This post alone is enough to contradict that. Please don't be stupid:
> http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?messageID=108007
whoop-ti-do. A post saying "let's look at that". Whatever. The fact remains that it was a NON-FUNCTIONING driver that had not been released. There was no chance that it would have been shipped in binary form (again, who the fuck wants a non-functioning driver??), the GPL would not have been violated, and it would have boiled down to being the simple copyright issue that it was.
> And even if there wasn't evidence for this, would you say the same thing if BSD code was found in an in progress Linux driver with the BSD header removed?
If BSD code, sans licence, was found in an unreleased linux driver, neither of us would never hear about it because it wouldn't be spammed to three fucking mailing lists. Now if it were the case that Redhat were shipping said driver then that's entirely different matter.
> Yeah, I don't think so.
Whatever douchebag. Thanks for playing.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (130.49.222.56) on
> > http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?messageID=108007
>
> whoop-ti-do. A post saying "let's look at that". Whatever. The fact remains that it was a NON-FUNCTIONING driver that had not been released. There was no chance that it would have been shipped in binary form (again, who the fuck wants a non-functioning driver??), the GPL would not have been violated, and it would have boiled down to being the simple copyright issue that it was.
I don't see how, if it's non-functioning or not that this would have changed anything? Perhaps that Open Solaris developer was going to start working on it for himself? Or FreeBSD? Or NetBSD? If it was BSD licensed, that's certainly allowed.
> > And even if there wasn't evidence for this, would you say the same thing if BSD code was found in an in progress Linux driver with the BSD header removed?
>
> If BSD code, sans licence, was found in an unreleased linux driver, neither of us would never hear about it because it wouldn't be spammed to three fucking mailing lists. Now if it were the case that Redhat were shipping said driver then that's entirely different matter.
In CVS is shipping whether you'd like to admit it or not. I can go and download a copy of bcw.c right now. I don't see how that isn't distributing it. It doesn't matter how you make it available. If you took wireless driver code from Microsoft and stuck it in a CVS, they'd have been a lot more mean than Michael.
> > Yeah, I don't think so.
>
> Whatever douchebag. Thanks for playing.
>
Extremely mature, it's been a pleasure talking with you too. :p
By Anonymous Coward (80.116.139.22) on
Yes, because it should be the Open Source Community way.
> And if the person whose code was taken decides to go public, he should be crucified?
Yes, because it is not the Open Source Community way.
> Funny values system you have there.
Think about yours.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (157.230.162.226) on
>
> Yes, because it should be the Open Source Community way.
Are you advocating settling matters behind close doors as "the Open Source way"?! Your hypocrisy has no limit...
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (65.248.199.227) on
> >
> > Yes, because it should be the Open Source Community way.
>
> Are you advocating settling matters behind close doors as "the Open Source way"?! Your hypocrisy has no limit...
Indeed! Linux people are entitled to this shameless public orgy of schadenfreude. This is how their community bonds!
By danno (thedanno) on
> >
> > Yes, because it should be the Open Source Community way.
>
> Are you advocating settling matters behind close doors as "the Open Source way"?! Your hypocrisy has no limit...
You are an idiot.
The entire code was posted publicly... otherwise the mistake never would've been caught.
But it's about how you deal with matters... you know, tact? It's like a child doing something wrong at the mall with his parents present... if the parents scold him publicly instead of taking the child aside and whispering what was done wrong, are they hypocrites to the 'Open Source Community Way' as well? I think not.
Did you like how I called you an idiot? Could I have displayed a little more tact? Do you get the point? ;) ;) ;)
By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on
Thats funny, I've had a few private email exchanges with Theo and he is actually quite a reasonable person.
By Anonymous Coward (83.5.220.158) on
Comments
By cruel (195.234.69.78) on
bcm43xx devs (and you) are talking about driver and its license. Theo is talking about Marcus. don't you see the difference?
should I quote R. Stallman again?
"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."
Period.
There is a driver today. There will be a food or water tomorrow.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (83.5.220.158) on
By Anonymous Coward (130.49.222.56) on
I don't understand this viewpoint. After re-reading the whole thread, Marcus only wrote two emails, the first which was reasonable and offered to work with the Linux team to get the issues worked out. The second was notification that the driver was deleted. If you look at the time stamps, Michael didn't even get a chance to respond before the driver was deleted. :p And yes, it does suck that because Marcus and Theo acted childishly, we won't get to use our Broadcom cards in *BSD.
By Matt Perry (75.24.215.213) on
Yet Michael wasn't the one that deleted the source from the OpenBSD tree. Yes, Michael should have done more investigation to find the developer and and emailed them privately, but he also made an offer to work with the developer to relicense parts and correct the problem. The ball was in Marcus' court and he decided to drop the project and move on to other things.
By Lobo (67.184.15.128) lobo.the.duck@gmail.com on
> Marcus' mistake.
So Marcus ACCIDENTALLY copied and pasted tracts of the GPL code in?
He just fat-fingered downloading the GPL code, fat-fingered to look at it, then fat-fingered saving it or copying it into the file he distributed?
Yeah.
Okay.
Such naivete.
By Joe Tennies (204.87.246.3) on
>
> * 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.
There is only one problem here. It *MUST* be noted publicly that the old version was in violation or no one would realize that the versions that were released (I'm making the assumption it was released or at least accessible by CVS/SVN/etc.). This is actually something that version control should be able to work with.
By Anonymous Coward (67.170.176.126) on
>
> * 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.
Jason, as much as I agree with what you wrote, word for word, this to me was an apolling failure of the OpenBSD leadership, namely Theo.
He could have reproached the guy *once* and then drop it. No, he had to continue and continue, embarassing himself and the rest of the BSD community. That's not the behavior I expect from the leader of a community I want to belong to. I have been an OpenBSD user for many years, read Undeadly daily, bought the CD at every release (my own way to contribute to the project) but every time I see this stuff (the name calling, the verbal abuse) it just makes my skin crawl. And I have to speak out. This could/should have been handled very differently. Somebody needs to have a conversation with Theo about it.
AC
By Anonymous Coward (72.54.103.33) on
>
> * 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.
Boy, that's one heck of a "mistake". So you try to play it down as if it was just some sort of freak accident. Like the gpl code he had printed out SOMEHOW MAGICALLY ended up in his stack of BSD code. Seems you're the only apologist around here, douchebag.
By Anonymous Coward (61.119.253.39) on
> wrong. It's unfortunate that Michael Beusch is more concerned about
> defending his actions than correcting the injustice.
If you're going to quote Jeff Garzik, perhaps you should also quote this one:
<pre>
From: Jeff Garzik <jeff@...>
Subject: Re: OpenBSD bcw: Possible GPL license violation issues
Newsgroups: gmane.linux.kernel.wireless.general, gmane.linux.drivers.bcm54xx.devel
Date: 2007-04-05 19:20:40 GMT (2 days, 5 hours and 2 minutes ago)
Theo de Raadt wrote:
> Instead, now, another Open Source developer has quit.
"I am going to take my toys and go home" is an immature, childish
response to an adult problem.
> You're no big man. You're main characteristic is 'bully'.
Pot. Kettle. Etc.
Jeff
</pre>
By Zenon Panoussis (80.217.67.185) on
> * 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.
Oh yes, they are. Indeed, they are the core of the problem.
> The sole issue is that Michael Beusch made a public spectacle out of Marcus' mistake.
No, that's not "the sole issue". It is a completely different issue. It might be as important as the main issue, but it is still a different issue.
Simply put, one wrong doesn't make another wrong right. Marcus erred in the first place. Michael erred in the second. Michael's fault doesn't make Marcus' fault disappear. Each one of them has the full responsibility for his actions, so blaming the one does not free the other from any of his responsibilities.
On top of it, the whole thing has been blown totally out of proportions. Marcus did violate copyrights, but that's not a capital crime in the worst of cases and it was hardly a crime at all in this case. An oversight, sure, thoughtlessness and sloppiness too, but hardly a crime. Using the GPL'ed code privately during the BSD driver developement would have been 100% legal and above-board. Marcus' only error was to commit that code to a public CVS. Unless you're a lawyer, it's pretty easy to miss the distinction between fully legal use of the code in and for your developement process on one hand, and infringing committing to a public CVS on the other. Then again, making an inhuman villain, a cruel executioner and a blood-thirsty vampyre out of Michael for pointing out in public a copyright violation which also took place in public, is going far too far. If Marcus should be excused for not realising that his commit of GPL code in the BSD tree was an infringement, then so should Michael be excused for not realising that a widely published copyright complaint would damage Marcus' reputation more than it intended to.
So please, skip the "your fault makes my fault irrelevant" rhetorics. The "its your crowd against our crowd" rhetorics too. This is not a GPL vs BSD war, nor a Michael vs Marcus war. It's not a war at all. It's a simple misunderstanding which could easily have been solved as soon as it surfaced. Answering an accusation with a counter-accusation, instead of with a straight answer, is what caused the unnecessary escalation.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (80.116.139.22) on
>
You hava said it. It was an "accusation".
By Bob Uhl (66.7.168.156) eadmund42+undeadly@gmail.com on http://latakia.dyndns.org/blosxom/blog
No, it had to be done publically; else anyone who had access to the version control system would think he had a legitimate copy of the code.
> 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.
Buesch did give him the benefit of the doubt--he said that it seemed that OpenBSD was infringing, and he even offered to help resolve the issue.
Not giving the benefit of the doubt would have been to have sued Theo, Michael and so forth, sending bailiffs to impound the OpenBSD version control system et cetera.
> It's unfortunate that Michael Beusch is more concerned about defending his actions than correcting the injustice.
The only injustice I see is that his copyrights were infringed.
By Tobias Weisserth (143.93.17.28) on
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/]
Comments
By adelfino (201.212.157.132) on
>
> 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/]
Exactly.
By cruel (195.234.69.78) on
>
> 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/]
this new article on undeadly is about lie. see "Addendum" here http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gpl-american-way.html
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120) on
> this new article on undeadly is about lie. see "Addendum" here http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gpl-american-way.html
Quit posting the same thing over and over again. We've seen your nonsense. We get it, you are dumb. Ok, shut up now. If you have nothing new to say, then quit posting.
Comments
By cruel (195.234.69.78) on
> > this new article on undeadly is about lie. see "Addendum" here http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gpl-american-way.html
>
> Quit posting the same thing over and over again. We've seen your nonsense. We get it, you are dumb. Ok, shut up now. If you have nothing new to say, then quit posting.
ok. i got it. frequent "no smoking" tabs are dumb.
By smith (70.189.207.203) smith@confuciun.com on
>
It looks like
OpenBSD used gpl code to play with, experiment with, and make their own clean BSD code.
It looks like
Buesch, aware of OpenBSD's reputation to use BSD code only, used this opportunity to politically smear OpenBSD's reputation in public.
That's what it looks like.
Someone without a political agenda, would have taken the private approach first.
If Buesch can go public with a smear, why can't the OpenBSD community to public to protect it's reputation.
Comments
By Alan DeWitt (66.224.219.110) on
Because it wouldn't do any good whatsoever?
Look, this whole flamefest stems from the assumption of motivations. Mr. Buesch apparently assumed that Mr. Glocker was acting in bad faith. Mr. de Raadt likewise seems to have assumed that Mr. Buesch was acting in bad faith. And now you're doing it, too.
But *none* of these assumptions of bad faith - including yours - appears to have more than the slightest supporting evidence. There's no reason to assume that Mr. Buesch has any political motivation whatsoever.
Worse, there's a great deal of potential harm to be done to everyone associated by continuing the flamewar. Enough already.
Comments
By Smith (70.189.207.203) smith@confuciun.com on
>
> Worse, there's a great deal of potential harm to be done to everyone associated by continuing the flamewar. Enough already.
> Look, this whole flamefest stems from the assumption of motivations. Mr. Buesch apparently assumed that Mr. Glocker was acting in bad faith. Mr. de Raadt likewise seems to have assumed that Mr. Buesch was acting in bad faith. And now you're doing it, too.
>
> But *none* of these assumptions of bad faith - including yours - appears to have more than the slightest supporting evidence. There's no reason to assume that Mr. Buesch has any political motivation whatsoever.
I'm not acting in bad faith, I'm forming my own opinion
by reading between the lines
from a few simple facts:
1) Buesch stated publicly on the Bcm43xx-dev mailing list that OpenBSD is using GPL code.
2) Theo is quoted to have said, "You did not privately mail that developer. You basically went public with it."
and a couple of assumptions (that there is general agreement on):
1) the code was in cvs to be examined and experimented with to make a clean bsd driver.
2) generally developers try resolve disputes privately and only go public when they are ignored.
This is all the evidence and assumptions I need to form my opinion. Buesch has a political aggenda.
I also wonder, wouldn't it be even more of a mud-slinging if Buesch did do this privately, got an inadquate response, and so went public with all the emails that went back and forth. That would make OpenBSD look really bad.
Or, maybe he didn't take this approach because he knew the OpenBSD community would have done the right thing and thus deprive Buesch of any mud-slinging. hmmmm.
If one reads between the lines, some interesting "faiths" pop up.
Is it A FACT that Mr. Buesch has any political motivation? NO.
Is there NO REASON to assume that Mr. Buesch has any political motivation? I DISAGREE.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.169.167.212) on
>
> Is it A FACT that Mr. Buesch has any political motivation? NO.
>
> Is there NO REASON to assume that Mr. Buesch has any political motivation? I DISAGREE.
That's a big-time fallacy of association there. Your statement sounds like what George W. Bush would say, with his "faiths" talking to him, too. After all, you are criticizing a "Westerner". Al Qaida hate "Westerners". So, reading between the lines of your post, it is like saying to you:
Is it A FACT that you're an al Qaida operative? NO.
Is there NO REASON to assume that you're an al Qaida operative? I DISAGREE.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (209.216.206.168) on
>
> Is it A FACT that you're an al Qaida operative? NO.
>
> Is there NO REASON to assume that you're an al Qaida operative? I DISAGREE.
>
> > If one reads between the lines, some interesting "faiths" pop up.
> >
> > Is it A FACT that Mr. Buesch has any political motivation? NO.
> >
> > Is there NO REASON to assume that Mr. Buesch has any political motivation? I DISAGREE.
>
> That's a big-time fallacy of association there. Your statement sounds like what George W. Bush would say, with his "faiths" talking to him, too. After all, you are criticizing a "Westerner". Al Qaida hate "Westerners". So, reading between the lines of your post, it is like saying to you:
>
> Is it A FACT that you're an al Qaida operative? NO.
>
> Is there NO REASON to assume that you're an al Qaida operative? I DISAGREE.
>
Faith is something you believe in but can't prove. I believe in God but can prove He exist. I beleive Mr. Buesch has a political aggenda but can't prove it. Since I can't prove Mr. Buesch has a politcal aggenda, I won't go around saying it's a fact either. But yes I feel that I have reasons, though unreasonable to others, to believe that Mr. Buesch does have a political aggenda.
If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and looks like a duck, is it a duck?
If you and your family were in Israel and you were about to board a bus to go site-seeing but you see a nervous, sweating person who looks to be of middle-eastern decent. He's also wearing a bulging overcoat and looks like he's hiding something under the coat. You see him board the bus. Now, it is not a fact he's al Qaida, true? Would you still board the bus with your family?
By Alan Dewitt (71.222.15.138) on
>
> 1) the code was in cvs to be examined and experimented with to make a clean bsd driver.
> [...]
> This is all the evidence and assumptions I need to form my opinion. Buesch has a political
> aggenda.
Your assumtion #1, whle generally agreed upon in hindsight, was very likely to have been unknown to Mr. Buesch at the time he wrote his first e-mail. (Did he follow the OpenBSD development discussion? Did Marcus inform him? Did anyone place comments to that effect in CVS? No to all, apparently.) The only thing Mr. Buesch knew for sure was that code he knew to be his own GPL-licensed code was in a public CVS, apparently claiming to be distributable under a BSD license.
Everyone seems to agree that placing the code there was a Bad Move on Mr. Glocker's part, no matter the purity of his motivations.
> Is there NO REASON to assume that Mr. Buesch has any political motivation? I DISAGREE.
You're failing to see a serious contradiction in your logic here. You're beating up on Mr. Buesch for not presuming that Mr. Glocker had pure motives (see above) and yet you yourself are actively assuming that Mr. Buesch's motives are sinister.
There's this little thing called the Golden Rule - maybe you've heard of it - which advises people to treat others the way they themselves would wish to be treated. If the OpenBSD community - of which I consider myself a very small part - wishes people like Mr. Buesh to cut us slack for our occasional mistakes, we should cut them some slack as well.
While it's certainly possible that Mr. Buesch intended to smear the OpenBSD project, it's equally possible - and, I think, *much* more likely - that Mr. Buesch simply acted with insufficient tact. We don't have sufficient evidence to make a sound judgement about Mr. Buesch's motives, so how about we assume that he meant well but made a mistake of diplomacy and call it a day?
Comments
By Smith (209.216.206.168) smith@confuciun.com on
>
You make a very good point.
> You're failing to see a serious contradiction in your logic here. You're beating up on Mr. Buesch for not presuming that Mr. Glocker had pure motives (see above) and yet you yourself are actively assuming that Mr. Buesch's motives are sinister.
>
My original response is directed to the original poster, Tobias Weisserth, who is basically saying that outsiders of the OpenBSD community, now view the OpenBSD community in a very negative way due to their treatment of Mr. Buesch. I guess in a nutshell I'm responding that anyone inside and outside the OpenBSD community could view Mr. Buesch in a negative way for how Mr. Buesch handled the situation. My logic is eye for an eye, if someone can find reason to believe that the OpenBSD community looks bad, someone can also find reason to believe that Mr. Buesch looks bad.
My real belief is that Mr. Buesch probably had a political aggenda but I wouldn't bet money off of it. There is just too little information to work with. But if I had to work with the guy, I'd be wary. I'd keep an eye on him.
By chill (24.14.186.238) on
>
> by reading between the lines
>
<snip>
>
> This is all the evidence and assumptions I need to form my opinion. Buesch has a political aggenda.
There is another angle. Michael and the Linux developers claim that, as far as they can tell, the closed-source BCM code is an ugly hack. In one case, they claim to have developed a much more elegant solution to what they believe BCM did.
If BCM thinks the same thing, and it is a GPL driver, then they'll have to play nice and open up if they want the code.
However, if that code was BSD licensed -- and it was supposedly part of Marcus' bits in the CVS tree -- then they can take it and give everyone the finger.
Michael probably panicked when he saw what he believed was his crown jewels there for BCM's picking. All his hard work, proving that even without proper documentation dedicated FOSS programmers can out-do the best BCM has to offer, was unprotected from theft. Not theft by Marcus, but theft by BCM.
One lever for getting companies to open up their docs is to show them that top notch code can be maintained for FOSS projects WITHOUT all their precious resources. Just give 'em proper docs and they'll make it shine.
Combine that with OpenBSD's reputation for extensive code auditing and unwavering ethics on proper licensing, and I can easily see Michael thinking "WTF is that guy doing?! He has OpenBSD CVS commit rights, so he damn well should know better!"
An over reaction? Sure. Could it have been handled privately? Sure. A fucking human rights issue, like Theo made it out to be? Not by a long shot.
Yes, Marcus made a mistake. It was, however, a BIG damn mistake.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (71.222.15.138) on
> Michael probably panicked when he saw what he believed was his crown jewels there for
> BCM's picking. All his hard work, proving that even without proper documentation dedicated
> FOSS programmers can out-do the best BCM has to offer, was unprotected from theft. Not
> theft by Marcus, but theft by BCM.
Well, yeah. But if Broadcomm is going to steal the code, they're going to steal the code. It's not a secret; it's publically available under the GPL. If they really want it, they can go fetch it and steal it themselves. The only difference now is that Broadcomm could steal it and theoretically try to blame it on Marcus. But given how widely this mistake has been publicized, it's hard to imagine that Broadcomm could claim to have made an honest mistake.
It's a nonzero concern, especially at the outset of this debacle, but I think at this point it's nearly moot.
By Cabal (Cabal) Cabal on http://www.enginuity.org/
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.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (195.234.69.78) on
> 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.
bcm43xx people want to "resolve the issue" RIGHT AFTER Marcus is bleeding. this called "we're not out for blood". nice.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (81.106.129.122) on
> > 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.
>
> bcm43xx people want to "resolve the issue" RIGHT AFTER Marcus is bleeding. this called "we're not out for blood". nice.
What on earth are you talking about? The guy stole their code, they're allowed to call him on it.
Theo (as ever) starts the name calling (in a now-obvious tactic to distract everyone from what actually happened). No-one is bleeding, stop being such drama queens.
It was a public discussion when the code hit the repo (89 revisions isn't an accidental commit).
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.66.14.254) on
By cruel (195.234.69.78) on
> 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.
what can you say if someone put a knife to your neck and say "ooookay, let's start to resolve the issue now". do you want to communicate in this way? Theo is right: some people living in caves holding sharp knives and looking for "communication".
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (151.188.247.104) on
>
You steal from me, I'll defend myself and what's mine, too. That code is Michael's; Marcus ripped it off by trying to re-license it under BSD, removing the original copyright info, and *COMMITTING IT TO CVS.* You steal from me like that, I'll "knife" you, too, if I catch you at it. Marcus screwed up here, big time.
DON'T STEAL, OPENBSD FOLKS. You're good enough coders that you don't have to. And if you wanted that GPL'd code under the BSD license, you could've at least asked. The record shows that you didn't.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.81.120.121) on
>
> You steal from me, I'll defend myself and what's mine, too.
> That code is Michael's;
> You steal from me like that, I'll "knife" you, too, if I catch you at it.
>
> DON'T STEAL, OPENBSD FOLKS.
>
The GNU/GPL crowd really makes me laugh when they yell DON'T STEAL...how the hell do you steal something that is SUPPOSIVELY 'FREE'...
Oh right, it's not actually free, it's just another gimmick...
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.169.167.212) on
> >
> > You steal from me, I'll defend myself and what's mine, too.
> > That code is Michael's;
> > You steal from me like that, I'll "knife" you, too, if I catch you at it.
> >
> > DON'T STEAL, OPENBSD FOLKS.
> >
>
>
> The GNU/GPL crowd really makes me laugh when they yell DON'T STEAL...how the hell do you steal something that is SUPPOSIVELY 'FREE'...
>
> Oh right, it's not actually free, it's just another gimmick...
>
And the BSD fanbois disgust me when they want to go off on red herrings like you just did. If you don't like the license, then don't commit the code into your public CVS repository. And definitely don't do it 89 times! It becomes "stealing" when you try to re-license it without permission. What part of that didn't make it through your skull?
*That* is why *BSD is not as successful as it could've been.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (84.166.127.203) on
what? lol - thanks for this joke
By danno (thedanno) on
> *That* is why *BSD is not as successful as it could've been.
>
stupidity, summed up in a single line. brilliant.
By Anonymous Coward (86.6.8.84) on
> >
> > DON'T STEAL, OPENBSD FOLKS.
> >
...
>
> The GNU/GPL crowd really makes me laugh when they yell DON'T STEAL...how the hell do you steal something that is SUPPOSIVELY 'FREE'...
>
> Oh right, it's not actually free, it's just another gimmick...
I don't see how think OpenBSD can be thought of as free now either. Clearly the devs have not the faintest clue as to how to stay within the law. At best it's full of stolen GPL code, at worst it's full of stolen Microsoft code.
Vista is free too if you pirate it.
By Bob Uhl (66.7.168.156) eadmund42+undeadly@gmail.com on http://latakia.dyndns.org/blosxom/blog
Egad, how in the world was Buesch's email sticking a knife in anyone's neck? How much of a pansy do you have to be to think that there's any comparison between 'I think you've infringed my copyright; let's work together to fix this' and plunging a weapon into someone's body?
By ddp (205.153.56.10) on
The various groups can work together, if they try.
Comments
By cruel (195.234.69.78) on
>
> The various groups can work together, if they try.
yes. but should this "try to work together" start from 9" nails? is it proper way to start?
oh. forgot. this is EXACLY proper way to start in commercial environment.
Comments
By ddp (205.153.56.10) on
>
> oh. forgot. this is EXACLY proper way to start in commercial environment.
>
I meant that the groups can work together without the public flogging. ;)
By Chas (12.217.82.49) on
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.
Comments
By Ben (mouring) mouring@nospam.eviladmin.org on http://eviladmin.org
>
> 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?
>
Under the strictest sense of the GPL rules dynamic linking to GPL code requires the whole code base to be released. If it was under LGPL it would be different.
However, I'd rather see native drivers that can be fully supported within the whole OpenBSD community (from non-commerical to commerical).
> 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.
I'd rather have documentation and native licensed drivers.
- Ben
Comments
By Chas (12.217.82.49) on
> Under the strictest sense of the GPL rules dynamic linking to GPL code requires the whole code base to be released. If it was under LGPL it would be different.
There is no dynamic linking. You compile a GPL driver into a BSD kernel, making the whole thing GPL. If you redistribute the kernel binary image, then you must redistribute ALL of the source under the terms of the GPL. If you omit the driver, then the kernel remains under the terms of the BSD license. Publishing the source of the GPL driver, in a separate area, not linked into the kernel, preserves the licenses until the end user can decide.
> However, I'd rather see native drivers that can be fully supported within the whole OpenBSD community (from non-commerical to commerical).
> I'd rather have documentation and native licensed drivers.
Well, if you insist on this, then you're not going to get what you want. So long, Broadcom.
Comments
By Ben (mouring) on http://eviladmin.org
>
> There is no dynamic linking. You compile a GPL driver into a BSD kernel, making the whole thing GPL. If you redistribute the kernel binary image, then you must redistribute ALL of the source under the terms of the GPL. If you omit the driver, then the kernel remains under the terms of the BSD license. Publishing the source of the GPL driver, in a separate area, not linked into the kernel, preserves the licenses until the end user can decide.
>
Pick your words more carefully: "[..] that must be linked into a newly-built kernel by the end user at runtime?"
"by the user at runtime" implies you are building a "bwc.o" file that you would be loading via a module system (much like what Linux does), since most can run happily off of the "default" kernel provided in the OpenBSD distro. In either case the problem is the same... Code taint.
> > However, I'd rather see native drivers that can be fully supported within the whole OpenBSD community (from non-commerical to commerical).
>
> > I'd rather have documentation and native licensed drivers.
>
> Well, if you insist on this, then you're not going to get what you want. So long, Broadcom.
Your right.. I don't buy Broadcom products.. Therefor they lose my business. Thus I honestly don't care about them. I tend to vote for products based on quality and usage. If I need hardware supported in OpenBSD I support the companies that support the community with documentation.
If *MORE* people did this the "Broadcoms" of the world would be forced to do something or find themselves out of a growing market segment.
But we digress. =-)
- Ben
By Louis (74.119.22.74) on
Blatant waste of bandwidth. It buys into one side of the story without any attempt to see the other side, or
> 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.
>
So why was the "special treatment" directed against an OpenBSD developer instead? Officials at Broadcom now have one more reason to dismiss calls for open documentation.
> 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?
>
"wrong" is a value judgement so I will not discuss it. Certainly it would totally go against goal #2 of OpenBSD as stated in http://www.openbsd.org/goals.html
> 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?
>
The GPL as a political tool has been tried before, but some pro-GPL developers have been undermining their own community's effort by signing away their rights or otherwise cooperating with restrictive vendor policies. All so people can watch YouTube and have shiny toys on their desktop. Selling out for baubles...
Not only less convenient, less free. The moment you restrict re-use of source code, we all lose. The restrictions can only escalate and if you take the scenario to its logical conclusion, you're back to the bad old days.
> 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.
As I write this www.VendorWatch.org seems to be off the 'net and there is a listing at http://vendors.bluwiki.org/ but really, how much do you think vendors care about those web sites that they will never visit. Letter or email writing campaigns are more effective because it gets their attention daily.
Ciao
--Louis
By Anonymous Coward (217.210.129.142) on
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...
Comments
By cruel (195.234.69.78) on
I think Theo does understand copyrights. but he does understand thing you does not: no one can crucify another one in the name of copyright.
GPL covers distribution. it's ok. but GPL implies GNU philosophy also.
"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."
R. Stallman.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (81.106.129.122) on
> I think Theo does understand copyrights. but he does understand thing you does not: no one can crucify another one in the name of copyright.
What is that supposed to mean? Of course you can. Companies get sued and go out of business all the time because of it.
OpenBSD f-cked up. Take your lumps and move on.
By Adriano Varoli Piazza (80.180.76.57) on http://moranar.com.ar
>
> I think Theo does understand copyrights. but he does understand thing you does not: no one can crucify another one in the name of copyright.
>
> GPL covers distribution. it's ok. but GPL implies GNU philosophy also.
>
> "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."
>
> R. Stallman.
>
You keep on trotting out that quote. That way, it only proves that anything can be taken out of context. Stallman also said "Your freedom to throw a punch ends at the tip of my nose". I have a few questions for you:
When should the Linux devs have acted, since "they are being too drastic because the driver is still only in development"? Should they wait until the driver is done, and have a much bigger mess to deal with (since the driver would then be in active use)?
If the driver violates the GPL, it violates the GPL. Sorry, but I really can't see the indecency of saying
"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."
Maybe you mean how all important people were contacted, in a very open manner (hint: what's the name of the OS "under accusation" here?)?
Saludos
Adriano
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (71.138.164.104) on
> >
> > I think Theo does understand copyrights. but he does understand thing you does not: no one can crucify another one in the name of copyright.
> >
> > GPL covers distribution. it's ok. but GPL implies GNU philosophy also.
> >
> > "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."
> >
> > R. Stallman.
> >
>
> You keep on trotting out that quote. That way, it only proves that anything can be taken out of context. Stallman also said "Your freedom to throw a punch ends at the tip of my nose". I have a few questions for you:
>
> When should the Linux devs have acted, since "they are being too drastic because the driver is still only in development"? Should they wait until the driver is done, and have a much bigger mess to deal with (since the driver would then be in active use)?
>
> If the driver violates the GPL, it violates the GPL. Sorry, but I really can't see the indecency of saying
> "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."
>
> Maybe you mean how all important people were contacted, in a very open manner (hint: what's the name of the OS "under accusation" here?)?
>
> Saludos
> Adriano
There was nothing wrong with informing somone about a GPL violation. However, Buesch screwed up pretty bad DRAGGING IT OUT IN PUBLIC FIRST.
By Anonymous Coward (74.100.58.198) on
>
> I think Theo does understand copyrights. but he does understand thing you does not: no one can crucify another one in the name of copyright.
>
> GPL covers distribution. it's ok. but GPL implies GNU philosophy also.
>
> "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."
>
> R. Stallman.
>
Sorry. I can't let you get away with that one. Classic violation of the fallacy of relevance.
The only thing the GPL implies is what is explicitly stated in the license.
You can't just say "Oh, it implies this as well". It explicit states what it means, you can't infer anything else except what is explictly stated. That's exactly what a license is for. To stop people from guessing what is being granted.
And the fact is that the BSD dev, accidentally or not, violated those terms and it was discovered.
Doesn't matter if it worked or not, or even compiled.
It was publicly distributed (CVS is public distribution), and all Theo's histornics aside, the Linux folks * did * clearly offer to work with the BSD folks to dual license things.
Hell, the Linux guys are going way above and beyond what they need to. They could have just said "You did something you weren't suppose to, remove all of our code right now". But instead, they were nice enough say that they would say yes or no to requests.
There is more then one person on the linux team, Micheal clearly stated he was representing a team, and there is a list of different folks who hold copyrights to the code in one of the news group posts.
Theo is a master of clouding the real issue. Fine. He didn't like how it was handled. What Theo thinks about how it was handled has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that there was something * wrong * that did occur. Nor does how Theo feels have any bearing on the need to correct the issues that were discovered.
Instead of a productive discussion (albeit in public) about addressing the actual issues, we've been treated to yet another display of the cult of theo. He's passionate, and dedicated. Absolutely no question. But his keyboard needs to have a 48 hour delay on accepting replies to posts.
And tossing OpenSSH around is just another distraction. Everyone knows that OpenSSH is the brain child of the OpenBSD project. Absolutely no attempt to steal credit for it what so ever, it's just Theo trying to cloud the issue with yet more irrelevant facts and historonics that have absolutely no applicability to the matter at hand.
By Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120) on
Its sad to see twits who can't read posting bullshit. Theo clearly said "This is a major problem in our code base." and firmly stated that it would be resolved. He understand copyright, and you obviously don't understand english.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (217.210.129.142) on
>
> Its sad to see twits who can't read posting bullshit. Theo clearly said "This is a major problem in our code base." and firmly stated that it would be resolved. He understand copyright, and you obviously don't understand english.
Theo:
> Yes, this driver has other problems though. To begin with, it does
> not even run yet, in any sense. Since it is not actual using code,
> there will be those who argue that the full impact of the GPL does not
> come to bear yet -- noone (sic) is "using" the code yet.
<http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.wireless.general/1561>
So, who can't read now, Mr. theo-fanboy?
Comments
By Alan DeWitt (71.222.15.138) on
"We always try to make our stuff as clean as possible too. In fact, I think no other code base out there is as clear of violations as ours. This is a major problem in our code base.
Yes, this driver has other problems though. To begin with, it does not even run yet, in any sense. Since it is not actual using code, there will be those who argue that the full impact of the GPL does not come to bear yet -- noone is "using" the code yet. But beyond that, these types of problem should not exist in our tree. It will be resolved."
> So, who can't read now, Mr. theo-fanboy?
We can all read, therefore we know that it's almost always possible to make anyone look bad with an out-of-context quote. Fish in a barrel, really. But with context, we can see that Theo acknowledged it was a serious problem and pledged to resolve it. (In context, I think his statement more likley was meant to reassure the copyright owners that the damage was not as severe as they might have feared than it was to impugn the value of their copyright.)
Please, everyone just chill out. The mistake is acknowledged, and corrective action has been taken. All the flamage - on both sides - is superfluous.
By Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120) on
> > not even run yet, in any sense. Since it is not actual using code,
> > there will be those who argue that the full impact of the GPL does not
> > come to bear yet -- noone (sic) is "using" the code yet.
>
> <http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.wireless.general/1561>
>
> So, who can't read now, Mr. theo-fanboy?
I don't like Theo actually, I find him to be a bit of a dick. But I happen to be capable of seperating my dislike of someone from the facts about what they said. Read the quote you posted, "THERE WILL BE THOSE". He did not say its ok. He specifically said it is a "SERIOUS ISSUE" and that it will be resolved. And it has been resolved. You can't change the meaning of words just by calling anyone who is smarter than you a "Mr. theo-fanboy".
By Cobalt (70.162.93.223) on
Comments
By Ray Percival (sng) on http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=search&sort=time&query=sng
Marcus isn't Marco.
Comments
By Cobalt (70.162.93.223) on
>
My typo abilities know no bounds.
By Anonymous Coward (24.84.108.103) on
> so this incident could go away).
Alcohol poisoning? :)
By Brynet (Brynet) on
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.
Comments
By cruel (195.234.69.78) on
>
> 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..)
exactly.
Linux is not about entire free software community. Linux is not about people who write a code. Linux is about Linux itself.
By Anonymous Coward (81.106.129.122) on
> Feel proud everyone.. You totally made someones many months of work on a "free" bcw driver useless.
Friends Don't Let Friends Read GPL code.
He did, the driver is 'tainted', it gets pulled, and OpenBSD is in for a shitstorm.
Try to learn from this.
By Joel (66.166.120.11) on
> 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..)
Are you guys making a hobby in licensing other people's code under the BSD?
> Now because of this public attack the driver was deleted from CVS.
Theo was the one attacking the people who pointed him and Marcus at the entire issue. Did the appologized? No... They attacked those who were just telling them that what Marcus did ( licensing the linux driver under BSD) is not OK.
Marcus deleted the driver after Theo created all this circus. If Theo would just shut up and let Marcus talk to the linux developers, I am sure other would be the outcome, for the much better.
(maybe the linux developers CC-ed to few of the copyright holders, but HEY!!! Theo made the issue know on the entire internet - Marcus, don't forget to thank Theo --)
> Seriously, You GPL zealots really piss me off.. Theo is definitely right!!
Yeah Theo won and all BSD community paid the price of his victory.
> 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.
... yeah thank you Theo, you are the greatest, man. You managed a huge victory by alienating a sister community with your insults and tantrums, made Marcus go delete the code, hide in a closet and cry. Left the BSD users bitter and with baseball bats in their hands, rage in their eyes, and rioting against the linux community. Great leader!!!
Microsoft will thank you at least for now. Go kill some linux.
Comments
By Brynet (Brynet) on
> Microsoft will thank you at least for now. Go kill some linux.
Don't bend my words kid.. go away troll.
By Anonymous Coward (216.68.198.57) on
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.
Comments
By SH (82.182.103.172) on
>
> While legal issues and "face" issues matter, all this is small. If bcw really matters, things can get worked out hopefully.
Mistakes has been done, as far as I can read here, but involving public mailling lists as a first contact will not make it easier to work things out later on. It is adversial and intended to embarras.
I was once in a similar situation accused on public mailing list of stealing GPL code, and I did not think it was a small matter then. I did get an apology from the accuser saying that he was wrong after he actually read the diff, but I was disappointed that he choosed to go public instead of asking me privately first what I was doing.
That incident left me with a sour taste in the mouth, and killed my interest to contribute in that project even though I got support from others.
Comments
By Joel (66.166.120.11) on
> >
> > While legal issues and "face" issues matter, all this is small. If bcw really matters, things can get worked out hopefully.
>
> Mistakes has been done, as far as I can read here, but involving public mailling lists as a first contact will not make it easier to work things out later on. It is adversial and intended to embarras.
>
> I was once in a similar situation accused on public mailing list of stealing GPL code, and I did not think it was a small matter then. I did get an apology from the accuser saying that he was wrong after he actually read the diff, but I was disappointed that he choosed to go public instead of asking me privately first what I was doing.
>
> That incident left me with a sour taste in the mouth, and killed my interest to contribute in that project even though I got support from others.
>
>
The CC was only sent to the parties involved (hence the developers of the code and their affiliates) and, if Theo would not have made such big waves, the discussion would have passed unnoticed.
Theo should have spanked Marcus for putting the code under BSD license (this allowing the proprietary driver manufacturer to enjoy taking the improved code with no problem or cost -- making the BSD the free distributor of a GPL code to those who refuse to help the free software communities) -- << nice huh?
As a good leader Theo should have been the first to tell Marcus: my boy you have wronged, go and appologize yourself and make a deal.
What Theo did? circus for the entire internet to see, how will people look at BSD now?
I personally see Theo=BSD, and BSD=Theo. Bad, bad boys.
By Anonymous Coward (81.106.129.122) on
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.
By Michael Buesch (85.212.37.89) mb@bu3sch.de on
Do you have no decency by illegally taking our work and publishing it as yours under an incompatible license?
_That_ is the real question.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (80.81.1.238) on
>
> Do you have no decency by illegally taking our work and publishing it as yours under an incompatible license?
> _That_ is the real question.
Why don't you linux guys just continue hating MS and leave us in peace? Concering the copyright violations, prove it - if you're right about that, I think that the authors of the bcw won't lie about that fact.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (81.106.129.122) on
> Why don't you linux guys just continue hating MS and leave us in peace?
They aren't 'linux guys' - they're people who spent a lot of time trying to get a decent free driver out into the public domain. Coders like the openbsd team.
They didn't release it under the BSD license because *it's their code*. They wrote it and so they can release it under whatever license they want.
The OpenBSD project is not world famous for PR. But that's ok, because we're all big boys and girls here and whether someone is 'nice' has NOTHING TO DO WITH WHETHER THEY ARE RIGHT OR NOT.
> Concering the copyright violations, prove it - if you're right about that, I think that the authors of the bcw won't lie about that fact.
Seen this? It's hard to find it in the thread, because Theo is working hard to hide it by wasting everyones time making out the *real* injured party is some kind of war criminal for saying 'hey, did you steal my code?':
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.wireless.general/1558/focus=1640
Follow the link to the diff in particular.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120) on
You are right that they aren't linux guys. Their work happens to be for the linux kernel, but they are not linux developers, and do not represent linux developers in any way. You are wrong that they are "trying to get a decent free driver out into the public domain". They are trying to get a GPL only driver out into the GPL domain, where only GPL projects can use it because they see it as a misguided way to harm broadcom (why help them sell their hardware then?).
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.169.167.212) on
>
> You are right that they aren't linux guys. Their work happens to be for the linux kernel, but they are not linux developers, and do not represent linux developers in any way. You are wrong that they are "trying to get a decent free driver out into the public domain". They are trying to get a GPL only driver out into the GPL domain, where only GPL projects can use it because they see it as a misguided way to harm broadcom (why help them sell their hardware then?).
>
Same reason, I suppose, why the OpenBSD team "helped" Intel and Atheros to sell more wireless hardware....
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120) on
They didn't do it while explicitly saying they were making their code GPL just to hurt the companies in question. That is incredibly hypocritical.
By Brynet (Brynet) on
> _That_ is the real question.
Why is it that you are intentionally trying to stop the development of another free implementation of Broadcom's closed up drivers.
The guy made a mistake.. The "Documentation" from the Linux driver development was likely missing a few things, he might of used some code from the Linux driver to speed things up a little while having clear intent of replacing it in the future, Committing it to the CVS to ease any further development.
So you notice a few little routines here and there that "have similar" whitespace and variable names, and notice he might of been doing some copy and pasting.
You could of simply gave the guy a heads up, Talking to "HIM" directly ensuring development of both drivers could continue normally, but instead you decided to get your 10 minutes of fame embarrassing someone publicly...
The majority of the driver was "HIS" work, he invested a lot of time on it.. so he made a few mistakes.. Big deal, It happens. (WE ARE HUMAN!)
Your public attack was obviously deliberate, inevitably forcing him into an embarrassing situation with no escape, Leaving only immediate deletion.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (131.251.0.5) on
> > _That_ is the real question.
>
> Why is it that you are intentionally trying to stop the development of another free implementation of Broadcom's closed up drivers.
>
> The guy made a mistake.. The "Documentation" from the Linux driver development was likely missing a few things, he might of used some code from the Linux driver to speed things up a little while having clear intent of replacing it in the future, Committing it to the CVS to ease any further development.
That's all speculation - you don't know what he intended, no-one does. The guy was asked to clarify what he was up to.
Someone (Theo) is trying to make a very big deal out of how many people the mail was CCed to, and throwing around accusations in an effort to make out that 'OpenBSD is the real victim here'.
That doesn't wash.
GPL code getting into a BSD project has knock-on effects to everyone who thinks they can trust that code to be free.
> So you notice a few little routines here and there that "have similar" whitespace and variable names, and notice he might of been doing some copy and pasting.
'copy and pasting' code is where we start talking about copyright violation.
By Anonymous Coward (71.227.127.196) on
could HAVE
Please learn English.
By Anonymous Coward (143.166.255.42) on
I honestly can't stop laughing about how small and piddly you are.
oh boo hoo the meany broadcomy is takey my codey! As if they couldn't do that without any repercussions. You are a delusional imbecile.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (77.128.142.77) on
Strange, the Linux GPLed driver is working. The OpenBSD driver isn't. Even not after taking the GPLed code, and falsely attaching a BSD license onto it. See kids, just swapping the license doesn't help. Some talent would help, too.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.66.14.254) on
By Anonymous Coward (122.49.148.225) on
</condescend>
sheesh, what an asshole
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.169.167.212) on
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.117.144.171) on
>
Actually, I think he keeps trying to change the subject. He keeps dodging the question of being an asshole and changes it to something else.
It's as though he's admitting he went too far and is too embarrassed to say so.
What happened is irrelevant to this discussion. What IS relevant is how it got handled initially.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (130.49.222.56) on
That's because the subject is about copied code in OpenBSD. OpenBSD doesn't want or need that. :p Would you rather he had sued or demanded removal first? Maybe then you could whine about him not being very nice, but calling him an "asshole" for pointing out an issue and offering to help fix it (by licensing HIS code BSD) hardly seems like an "asshole" to me.
By Anonymous Coward (77.128.142.77) on
See, OpenBSD has this fearless leader Theo. His behavior rubs off on the whole OpenBSD community. The OpenBSD community really can't do better.
Oh, they can steal code and blame it on the victim. Yep, that's the best they can do.
By Anonymous Coward (24.107.12.42) on
>
> Do you have no decency by illegally taking our work and publishing it as yours under an incompatible license?
> _That_ is the real question.
The "offending" code has since been removed from CVS, and you are perfectly aware of that. Feel free to stop your whining now. You won for pete's sake.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (71.59.26.208) on
> >
> > Do you have no decency by illegally taking our work and publishing it as yours under an incompatible license?
> > _That_ is the real question.
>
> The "offending" code has since been removed from CVS, and you are perfectly aware of that. Feel free to stop your whining now.
There's only one phrase that qualifies for "whining" quoted in there and it doesn't belong to Mr. Buesch.
By Programmer-at-Arms (65.116.112.6) programmer.at.arms@gmail.com on
>
> Do you have no decency by illegally taking our work and publishing it as yours under an incompatible license?
> _That_ is the real question.
I believe the OpenBSD folks have admitted their mistake.
When will you admit yours?
By Harpalus a Como (216.168.99.150) on
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.
Comments
By squiggleslash (66.32.75.97) squiggleslash@yahoo.com on https://slashdot.org/~squiggleslash/journal/
>
> 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.
I don't even think Michael went "so public" with it, the only public aspect was the fact that the mailing list was nominally open. It didn't smear anyone's reputation as written, it was extremely well written and pointed out some matters of fact that needed to be addressed. Had Theo not gone ballistic, and had Marcus written a sensible, rational, response that fit the message sent originally, I don't think this would have left the mailing lists.
Quite honestly, this article does not reflect well on the OpenBSD community. It's essentially apologism, and blaming the victim. I'd say Theo's reaction doesn't reflect well on the OpenBSD community either, but Theo is Theo, he's a great coder but he needs to pick his fights.
What needed to happen was for Marcus to explain the situation, for the community to recognize an error had been made putting GPL'd code into CVS, whether the intent was to make it part of the kernel or not, and for Michael's offers of help, which were generous, to have been accepted. I fail to see how insulting the guy who (a) can help you out the most with the project you're working on and (b) has a legitimate grievance he's aired politely is in any way going to move a project forward, resolve differences, or in some way help the reputation of those at fault.
We have a much bigger problem in the free software community with people unable to see the dangers of undiplomatic behavior than we do with copyright or licensing issues.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (151.188.247.104) on
Theo acted in his typical arrogant, "Theo is always right, everyone else sucks" attitide. His response should've been simply, "OK, you've got a point, we'll take care of it. Thanks for the heads-up." Marcus should've explained what he was doing and why. Finally, Marcus should've taken Michael up on his offer to discuss re-licensing parts of bcm43xx under BSD. None of these things happened.
The OpenBSD team is made up of some very good coders. But they act in so acidic a manner that I sure wouldn't want to be around them or have any dealings with them. Their vitriol against "Linux people" is nearly palpable and ongoing for several years. Theo, of all people, has no business even *thinking* of accusing others of "being inhuman" given the tone of a whole lot of his *very public* attacks--often personal and name-calling--on other people over the years.
By Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120) on
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (71.199.122.57) on
I don't the Inquirer in the CC list, blaming Michael for that article is ridiculous. Perhaps the Inquirer simply follows the mailing lists like many other people do? You know, Journalism?
By Michael Buesch (213.54.1.5) mb@bu3sch.de on
I did _NOT_ send it to the inquirer!!
Theo was actually the first one pointing me to the inquirer article! (And no, I _don't_ say he did send it there.)
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (65.248.199.227) on
By Anonymous Coward (81.170.134.216) on
Haha. "sometimes". Nonono. I hear he's a really good guy... in person. Online he snaps each and every time.
I don't know any other community that would accept a leader that snaps every time he's attacked or someone knows less than him, or disagrees with him.
If Linus or RMS snapped people would get surprised and say "eh... what are you doing?".
Without going into technical matters at all, you have to admit that the OpenBSD community is the most elitist (as opposed to elite) community of at least the opensource world.
After a conversation of "You seem to have a bug here" - "Yeah? Well your parents are divorced!" people don't feel they can or want to cooperate with you.
What, you think there aren't discovered unpublished rootholes in OpenBSD?
By Bob Uhl (66.7.168.156) eadmund42+undeadly@gmail.com on http://latakia.dyndns.org/blosxom/blog
He had to go public, else there would be folks unknowingly using his code, thinking it was BSDLed.
The facts are the facts: if they hurt Marcus's reputation, they are still only the truth.
By Anonymous Coward (24.37.242.64) on
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
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (201.24.61.118) on
By Anonymous Coward (194.126.21.2) on
>
> 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
>
>
Um...right. If the company you're talking about is Broadcom, I don't think Michael will be too disappointed. He doesn't work for them and has had to put a whole lot of effort into writing a driver for a device created by a company that won't explain how the device works.
As for you, your ability to grab the wrong end of the stick and beat a dead horse with it (sorry for mixing metaphors) seems to imply that we would all be better off avoiding <b>your</b> company's products.
By Anonymous Coward (151.188.0.134) on
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?
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (85.214.91.152) on
>
> 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?
>
are you deliberately ignoring the rest of the comments on this article so you can troll or can you really not read?
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.169.167.212) on
> >
> > 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?
> >
>
> are you deliberately ignoring the rest of the comments on this article so you can troll or can you really not read?
>
You are denying that Marcus screwed up? You actually support copyright violation?? Are you deliberately ignoring the fact of the license violation so that you can whine or can you really not think?
Marcus screwed up. Big. He got what was coming to him. He--and the OpenBSD project as a whole--are lucky they didn't get slapped with a lawsuit! If it had been, say, Cisco's code (some of it's out in the wild, too), they'd be getting bled dry with legal fees RIGHT NOW, courtesy of Robert Barr. Marcus and Theo both ought to be *thanking* Michael, not whining.
Comments
By Chris (80.176.91.102) chris@chris.net on www.chris.net
A lawsuit, ah yes, the hollow threat of a blowhard. The code in question was in a CVS repository - try making that a criminal offense.
Fuckwit. Now piss off back to Slashdot and ripping off music from whatever p2p is flavour of the week.
By Deanna Phillips (deanna) on
Sigh. What amazes me is that no one seems to have read the actual text of this article. It was meant as a way of saying goodbye to something, and as a show of respect for the hundreds of hours of hard work and impeccably good intentions that were behind it.
If this driver were actually "stolen goods" as so many seem to think that it was, does it make sense that the authors (yes, plural, Jon Simola started this, and he also deserves our thanks and respect) would need six months to copy and paste? These guys put a huge amount of work into something *of their own*, that is now gone. I encourage anyone who also appreciates their effort to send them a thank you message.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (71.199.122.57) on
>
> If this driver were actually "stolen goods" as so many seem to think that it was, does it make sense that the authors (yes, plural, Jon Simola started this, and he also deserves our thanks and respect) would need six months to copy and paste? These guys put a huge amount of work into something *of their own*, that is now gone. I encourage anyone who also appreciates their effort to send them a thank you message.
There was no reason to delete the driver, from an outsider's perspective, it was Theo's childish behaviour that caused the deletion and now we don't have an OpenBSD driver. Both the Linux driver guys and the Linux specs guys offered to help fix the issues with the driver, [1][2] but instead, without waiting for a response from Michael, the driver was deleted. That was extremely childish and immature.
As for all of the ranting about Michael's disclosure, it seems to me that he made the right decision. The code was "tainted" and it was reasonable to assume that since it had been made public, it could have been picked up by the other BSDs. By keeping it quiet, infringing code could have made its way to other BSDs and caused further issues. Besides, I would rather know that there is an issue with licensing instead of having it be kept hush-hush.
I expected this from Theo. I'm disappointed in the OpenBSD community.
[1] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.wireless.general/1578
[2] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.wireless.general/1566
By Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120) on
No she hasn't.
By wob (71.237.33.86) wob@bonch.org on
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.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.169.167.212) on
Some extra scrutiny is indeed placed on the OpenBSD team, that is certainly true. This is, from what I see, two reasons:
1.) Yes, they're anally retentive about correctness and security. This is very good thing. They're setting the bar, and bar setters tend to get looked at a bit harder. That's the price for being #1.
2.) Theo's attitude problem. He has a really bad attitude toward anybody who doesn't agree with him. Just as one example, I read the entire NetBSD thread in which he got booted out of the project, and I don't blame the NetBSD team one iota. I'd have kicked him out too for his behaviour. Therefore, when "his" project (i. e. OpenBSD) makes a mistake, yes, some (not all) take especial glee at pointing out that he is not in fact a divine being.
Number 2 is why ISS went public with the OpenSSH vulnerability (the first remote hole in the default install) without giving the OpenBSD team some more time to develop a fix. It was a bit of payback for Theo's arrogant, tantrum-prone behaviour over the years. They probably would've waited that extra week had it been, say, Patrick Volkerding.
If Theo quit attacking people and throwing tantrums like he did in this case, he'd probably get a lot more cooperation from other teams. Maybe he ought to take some lessons from Jonathan Gray and Bob Beck, who get their points across just fine without the tantrum.
You claim that Michael could've handled this differently. Well, Theo DEFINITELY SHOULD HAVE handled his end way, way differently. *WAY* differently. For that matter, Marcus could have, and should have, handled the mistake differently as well, public email or not.
If you've got a *logical* refutation to the above points, without name-calling, then I'm all ears.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (67.64.89.177) on
By Anonymous Coward (130.49.222.56) on
Which is completely irrelevant in this case. The Linux driver guys wrote free and open specs! It doesn't get any better than this if the company won't release specs. I'd much rather have specs than have to crawl through thousands of lines of code. :p
See:
http://bcm-v4.sipsolutions.net
> 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.
Or, perhaps Michael was trying to protect others from using tainted code? If I was a FBSD dev, I would have been watching the OBSD driver effort, perhaps even copying the code into my own repository. Now I know. If this had been private, maybe there would have been other issues in the future?
> 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 don't see how copying GPL'd code is true to its core values and goals. :p
> I would think there would be much bigger issues to take on, instead of this petty crap.
Indeed. Like fixing bcw instead of deleting it because Theo made a fool of OpenBSD in public again. :p
By Anonymous Coward (69.123.9.119) on
http://digg.com/linux_unix/Open_Source_coders_caught_stealing_Open_Source_code
By Anonymous Coward (213.97.187.239) on
Why talented coders use to have ZERO (even negative) social skills?.
By Renaud Allard (renaud) renaud@llorien.org on
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.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (71.199.122.57) on
I don't see how you can come to this conclusion after reading both his and the reverse engineer's emails. Both of them offered to help, Michael by offering to dual-license some of his code and clean up the licensing issues, and the reverse engineers by clarifying the specs that they wrote.
I think if the BSD driver clearly had denoted that sections were copied from the Linux driver and that they would be removed before an official release, things would have been fine and nobody would doubt the bcw authors. But take a look at the CVS commit message for commit #78 [1] (as pointed out by Stefano in the flame thread). From that commit message, it certainly sounded like that code was intended to stay, and that's not right. It makes OpenBSD look bad and we don't need that kind of behaviour.
[1] http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/sys/dev/ic/Attic/bcw.c
Comments
By Renaud Allard (renaud) on
>
> I don't see how you can come to this conclusion after reading both his and the reverse engineer's emails. Both of them offered to help, Michael by offering to dual-license some of his code and clean up the licensing issues, and the reverse engineers by clarifying the specs that they wrote.
>
Of course.
RCPT TO: many_mailing_lists, gpl-violations, some_unrelated_people
DATA: You are infringing with my license but I offer you help to develop your driver.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (71.199.122.57) on
>
> RCPT TO: many_mailing_lists, gpl-violations, some_unrelated_people
> DATA: You are infringing with my license but I offer you help to develop your driver.
>
So, because he CC'd more people than you might have to the original email, he doesn't really mean any of the things that he says.
And because someone who was CC'd on that email responded with an offer to help, well, they've obviously got an agenda too. :p
Wake up! The people CC'd do not change the contents of the email. Everyone seemed to be genuinely wanting to help OpenBSD resolve the issue and make a better driver. Who would be better to do that the people who wrote a working driver already? What does it matter who was CC'd to the list?
I just don't understand why Theo would want to hurt OpenBSD this way. All I want is a legal and working bcw driver.
Comments
By Renaud Allard (renaud) on
> >
> > RCPT TO: many_mailing_lists, gpl-violations, some_unrelated_people
> > DATA: You are infringing with my license but I offer you help to develop your driver.
> >
>
> So, because he CC'd more people than you might have to the original email, he doesn't really mean any of the things that he says.
>
Yes, because it is interpreted in a much different way. Everything you read is interpreted, it does not matter if you want it interpreted or not. CCing that much people before trying to solve the issue directly will be interpreted in a much more aggressive way.
It is just like some people at job who CC the boss for every flaming mail they send at some of their collegue. This is interpreted very differently than in private exchange even if it is the very same mail. It is interpreted as a very aggressive rant and can lead much further than you intended it in the first place.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (71.199.122.57) on
> It is just like some people at job who CC the boss for every flaming mail they send at some of their collegue. This is interpreted very differently than in private exchange even if it is the very same mail. It is interpreted as a very aggressive rant and can lead much further than you intended it in the first place.
The only aggressive rant in that whole flame thread was Theo calling people names ("Inhuman"? Are you kidding me?). I know I will not convince you otherwise, but I still think it's sad that we lost a driver simply because someone "misinterpreted" the entire email by only looking at the CC list.
It's misdirection of the real issue. Perhaps Michael is sorry about CC'ing gpl-violations, but most of the other CC's seem pretty reasonable, public mailing list or not. Like I've said a few times in this thread, BSD code can be freely copied and used by someone else as long as the attribution stays. Isn't that the point? Michael seemed genuinely concerned that other people might take or have already taken the CVS code and used it somewhere else. I don't see how a private email would solve that in any way.
The only people who lost here are the people who wanted to see bcw finished and it's certainly not Michael's fault that happened, no matter what way you look at it.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.66.14.254) on
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (130.49.222.56) on
>
Probably because he would have called the offenders "inhumane sub-humans" :p If Theo had offered as nice of a request as Michael's (imagine Theo dual licensing something BSD/GPL haha) and the Linux developers had reacted the same way, I'd certainly be bashing the Linux developers right now too. :p
By Anonymous Coward (71.237.33.86) on
http://bsd.slashdot.org/bsd/07/04/07/1618239.shtml
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (85.82.251.193) on
>
> http://bsd.slashdot.org/bsd/07/04/07/1618239.shtml
>
Copyright violation -> Notification of copyright violation -> correction of copyright violation.
Every thing else is bullshit.
By lu_zero (151.43.235.172) on
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.
Comments
By David Mashem (70.255.63.133) on
I work on GPL code. I don't need you you guys who do free dev work for the corporations using it, thank you very much. You might want to understand exactly what "free software" means, if you're developing under a BSD style license you obviously don't.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120) on
No, you don't. Free means free. Period. Not "free unless I don't like you", or "free only as long as you license it the way I tell you to", but just "free". The GPL is not free, as it cannot be used in anything besides other GPL projects.
By Anonymous Coward (71.120.227.200) on
By Heath (131.107.0.105) on
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."
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.66.12.27) on
By Alan Finlay (203.17.46.83) on
>
> 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.
Actually, it is correct. A derivative work must include some of the original in some form or another. You don't understand the technical meaning of a derivative work in copyright law. Think of translating a book into another language, that's a derivative work. If I write a commentary on a work, then the comments alone are not a derivative. If I take a book and replace one chapter at a time with my own completely different chapter, always keeping a plausible plot with each substitution, and eventually end up with a different book, then this too is not a derivative work (even if I admit I could not have done it without using the original work in this process). To be a derivative work, you must be able to show a mapping between the final form and the original, the process or history of the composition of the work is not relevant.
The cleanroom approach to duplicating a software component is simply a way to be sure you have not accidentally included some of the original - it is not required or even necessary. If I write a driver and use stubs for functions I have not written yet, and initially implement those stubs using the original code while I develop the rest of the component. Provided I eventually rewrite all those stubs with my own code (i.e. not with derivative code), then I will not infringe on the copyright. And I think the GNU community would be happy with that as well.
Comments
By Pieter Hulshoff (80.126.111.3) phulshof@xs4all.nl on
> original in some form or another.
True in itself, but the approach taken here puts you on a very slippery slope. How much change is enough to ensure that the work is not still considered a derivative work under copyright law? Just renaming everything? Rewriting functions in equivalent terms? It is exactly those problems that make the need for a clean room approach.
By Anonymous Coward (68.164.71.134) on
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.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120) on
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (71.59.26.208) on
close, but not quite there: would you prefer whispering for help when you notice the hombres taking off with your car, or would you rather have a megaphone?
(yes, that's just inhuman, blah, blah, blah. now can I have my car keys?)
By DougFractal (82.10.238.0) on
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.wireless.general/1558
since it ends pretty fair.
--->
"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."
<---
By Ed - 0x1b (24.119.18.143) on
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
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (80.145.6.70) on
As long as the OpenBSD "culture" is self-supporting, no problems about that, but if they start eating somebody else's cake "harvested" in somebody else's house, they need to play by the house rules or thrown out. And they haven been politely explained the house rules of the GPL camp and been offered to stay and play together. If they refuse - their decision.
By Anonymous Coward (77.128.142.77) on
Why? A thief is a thief is a thief.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (81.175.195.200) on
Ahem.. A copyright infringementor is a copyright infringementor is a copyright infringementor. It still isn't theft :)
By Anonymous Coward (77.128.142.77) on
You have been caught steeling code. Admit it and excuse, instead of blaming the one you stole from.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (203.17.46.83) on
> 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
In this commnet there is clearly the implication that BSD developers have intentionally gone about stealing GPL code and illegally relicensing it.
I think this is what got up the BSD dev's noses. Anyone who has worked with BSD code would know that any such violation would have been unintentional - and likely in this case a missunderstanding of what the implications are of commiting incomplete code to a publically viewable CVS repository.
It would appear to be an attempt to discredit the BSD development community and I am not surprised by the reaction.
Comments
By Dan Farrell (thedanno) on http://danno.appliedi.net/drupal/
> > 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
>
> In this commnet there is clearly the implication that BSD developers have intentionally gone about stealing GPL code and illegally relicensing it.
>
> I think this is what got up the BSD dev's noses. Anyone who has worked with BSD code would know that any such violation would have been unintentional - and likely in this case a missunderstanding of what the implications are of commiting incomplete code to a publically viewable CVS repository.
>
> It would appear to be an attempt to discredit the BSD development community and I am not surprised by the reaction.
Exactly. I love all this talk about code being 'stolen'. If Marcus was going to literally steal the code, he'd have to take the code from Beusch so that he doesn't have it anymore, and then develop a -working- driver, and then take credit for it completely with some statement like "Yeah that programming is 100% me." Oh yeah, and it would basically have to be closed source.
That's theft. Taking something and denying that something to the original possessor.
The driver code apparently wasn't even at the working stage when this happened. It was still in development.
In addition, it was posted publicly, for ALL TO SEE and for ALL TO CRITIQUE. Kind of hard to steal something when you have to present it for all to see and have.
In fact, and this is the irony of it all, if it had been truly stolen then it likely wouldn't have been found out at all. Because the OBSD code source is transparent by nature, it was possible to find the mistake of using code that had not been properly attributed to the original authors.
And that's what happened. In the middle of developing a driver, Marcus used Buesch's code to fill in the gaps to further development, but didn't attribute this to Buesch.
And then Buesch made the worst mistake possible. He went public on the first round. Big mistake. It shows a complete lack of professionalism and respect for other open source developers.
And now the OBSD community as a whole is maligned for making that rather obvious point. Ridiculous.
By Anonymous Coward (69.232.52.164) on
>
> I think this is what got up the BSD dev's noses. Anyone who has worked with BSD code would know that any such violation would have been unintentional - and likely in this case a missunderstanding of what the implications are of commiting incomplete code to a publically viewable CVS repository.
If that was so, then the person who did it is not a developer. Every developer needs to be aware of copyright issues. And every real Open Source developer knows that if he submits code to an open source archive, that is is available to the world, and that this constitutes distribution.
> It would appear to be an attempt to discredit the BSD development community and I am not surprised by the reaction.
No. It was a clear copyright violation. Theo and Marcus should have apologized, and fixed the violation. That's how adults would have handled it, and it would have been the end of it.
Instead, Theo and others from the BSD side go on this idiotic rampage, hurting the OpenBSD project much more than the original copyright violation did.
By Sylvain (89.55.165.192) on
I find the terms polite, well balanced and a clear offer to resolve this without much fuss.
Would I receive such a mail, I would personally
1) check if what it claims is true
2) make public apologies
3) work to solve the problem _and_ have a working driver that respects copyright
Instead they were a flamewar ... and the driver were removed.
Now I know why am I not an OpenBSD developer !
By Anonymous Coward (80.171.82.108) on
"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.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (71.195.73.218) on
Errm... get your facts straight. It was never published.
> 2) Copyright holder goes public and complains about this but says he's open to find an amicable solution.
It's a common developer etiquette to inform the other party _privately_
> 3) Theo de Raadt raises a stink of astronomical proportions over some etiquette issues or something.
Well, Linux fan-boys were ready to blow up the god damn OSS field with copyright lawsuits.
> 4) OpenBSD unnecessarily loses the driver.
We never had it in the first place. It was under-development.
> 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.
It's amazing how Linux fanboys can adopt OpenSSH and yet reject BSD code. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (71.59.26.208) on
> Errm... get your facts straight. It was never published.
Oh really?! What do you call committing to a public CVS repository then?
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.117.144.171) on
> > Errm... get your facts straight. It was never published.
>
> Oh really?! What do you call committing to a public CVS repository then?
>
>
>
I don't know about you, but I don't store my code on just my laptop. I usually store it in a central location -- even if it's under development. You see, just because something is stored in a database doesn't mean it's published.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (71.59.26.208) on
> > > Errm... get your facts straight. It was never published.
> >
> > Oh really?! What do you call committing to a public CVS repository then?
> >
> >
> >
>
> I don't know about you, but I don't store my code on just my laptop. I usually store it in a central location -- even if it's under development. You see, just because something is stored in a database doesn't mean it's published.
if the database is public, that's exactly what it means. we're talking distribution here, not release management. if everybody can grab the code from your server then you're obviously distributing it and that's where copyright law kicks in.
By Anonymous Coward (80.171.82.108) on
May I remind you it wasn't just "in a database," but rather ...
"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."
In other words, made accessible to all the world. PUBLISHED.
Why are we even arguing about this trivial point?
By Anonymous Coward (69.232.52.164) on
> > > Errm... get your facts straight. It was never published.
> >
> > Oh really?! What do you call committing to a public CVS repository then?
> >
> >
> >
>
> I don't know about you, but I don't store my code on just my laptop. I usually store it in a central location -- even if it's under development. You see, just because something is stored in a database doesn't mean it's published.
You are obviously not a developer.
It was stored in a PUBLIC database, and as such, it WAS published. Any real developer would understand that.
Case closed.
By Anonymous Coward (77.128.142.77) on
> Errm... get your facts straight. It was never published.
It was put on a public CVS server. The original copyright holders didn't find out about the violation by illegally sniffing on a particular person's hard disk. No, they just had to look at the public available code.
And right at this minute one can still get it from http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/src/sys/dev/ic/Attic/
garnished with an insult, clearly intended to harass the original copyright holder, by publishing his e-mail address.
Marcus Glocker apparently knows no shame.
> > 2) Copyright holder goes public and complains about this but says he's open to find an amicable solution.
> It's a common developer etiquette to inform the other party _privately_
It is up to the victim to decide how to handle the issue. It is not up to the thieves. If they can't live with the consequences they should better not have stolen the code.
> > 3) Theo de Raadt raises a stink of astronomical proportions over some etiquette issues or something.
> Well, Linux fan-boys were ready to blow up the god damn OSS field with copyright lawsuits.
TdR appears as a very strange person to me, to put it mildly. But how that relates to copyright lawsuits is beyond me. Is TdR's personality copyrighted?
> > 4) OpenBSD unnecessarily loses the driver.
> We never had it in the first place. It was under-development.
It was published, the GPL copyright notice removed, and illegally stuck a BSD license to it. Calling code steeling and publishing it "under development" gives the phrase "under development" a whole new meaning. That was apparently done by or under the guidance of an experienced developer, Marcus Glocker. So experienced that it will be difficult for him to claim ignorance.
> > 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.
> It's amazing how Linux fanboys can adopt OpenSSH and yet reject BSD code. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
If BSD fanboys don't want their stuff used outside of pure BSD products they should consider another license. It's that simple. If you want control over your work, exercise your copyright, just like the GPL people do.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.117.144.171) on
> > Errm... get your facts straight. It was never published.
>
> It was put on a public CVS server. The original copyright holders didn't find out about the violation by illegally sniffing on a particular person's hard disk. No, they just had to look at the public available code.
So? What's your point? What is the difference between working collectively and working privately?
If this was all behind closed doors then this wouldn't be *OPEN*BSD, now would it? Just because something is in a sandbox doesn't mean it's going to get used. If you were a developer then you would know that.
>
> And right at this minute one can still get it from http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/src/sys/dev/ic/Attic/
> garnished with an insult, clearly intended to harass the original copyright holder, by publishing his e-mail address.
Uhh, how is it clearly intended to harass the orginal copyright holder? If he would have said "contact this guy if you have any complaints" then yes, I would agree.
> Marcus Glocker apparently knows no shame.
Disproven.
>
> > > 2) Copyright holder goes public and complains about this but says he's open to find an amicable solution.
> > It's a common developer etiquette to inform the other party _privately_
>
> It is up to the victim to decide how to handle the issue. It is not up to the thieves. If they can't live with the consequences they should better not have stolen the code.
You are entirely correct. What Michael has shown us is he is out for blood. He acted very harshly. Certainly this is within his right however it shows he is rude and inconsiderate.
> TdR appears as a very strange person to me, to put it mildly. But how that relates to copyright lawsuits is beyond me. Is TdR's personality copyrighted?
huh? your point?
> It was published, the GPL copyright notice removed, and illegally stuck a BSD license to it. Calling code steeling and publishing it "under development" gives the phrase "under development" a whole new meaning. That was apparently done by or under the guidance of an experienced developer, Marcus Glocker. So experienced that it will be difficult for him to claim ignorance.
If it's in a sandbox (read: not pressed on a CD or released in to -STABLE) then how is that published? If I post some code in a copy-n-paste website so some other developer can grab it later, is that published?
At what /exact/ point is something published? When people can publicly get it? So, does this mean that you aren't allowed to develop online or have your data stored in a publicly accessible place so others can assist?
> If BSD fanboys don't want their stuff used outside of pure BSD products they should consider another license. It's that simple. If you want control over your work, exercise your copyright, just like the GPL people do.
Again, you missed the point. The OpenBSD community isn't bitching about others using OpenSSH. Actually, now that I think about it, they are bitching about a couple things. One of them is they don't trust Theo. Then fine -- why are you using code written by someone you don't trust? You obviously MUST trust the code isn't stolen, so their is /some/ level of trust? hmm.. kettle... pot...black.
When Theo said this, I'm certain he didn't mean he would introduce holes -- he meant "why are you trusting the code I write if you don't trust me? hypocrits".
Then again, why am I online and arguing this...you can't stop fanatics. I suppose this makes me a fanatic as well... blast!
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (71.59.26.208) on
> > > Errm... get your facts straight. It was never published.
> >
> > It was put on a public CVS server. The original copyright holders didn't find out about the violation by illegally sniffing on a particular person's hard disk. No, they just had to look at the public available code.
> So? What's your point? What is the difference between working collectively and working privately?
> If this was all behind closed doors then this wouldn't be *OPEN*BSD, now would it? Just because something is in a sandbox doesn't mean it's going to get used. If you were a developer then you would know that.
sorry, but apparently you have no clue how IP works. here's a thought experiment: rip your legally purchased CD collection and store it in the same publicly accessible repository where you store your code. then try to explain to the RIAA lawyers how you were not infringing their client's rights by distributing their copyrighted work without permission (license).
By scorekeeper (87.166.69.174) on
Beside the point. You can work in collaboration without publishing your work. You are familiar with the concepts of passwords, of course ?
(and even then, another poster already noted the issue of derivative works of copyrighted materials).
> If this was all behind closed doors then this wouldn't be *OPEN*BSD, now would it? Just because something is in a sandbox doesn't mean it's going to get used. If you were a developer then you would know that.
It does not matter whether it is going to be used or not. Take, for instance, the windows 2000 sourcecode. By your logic, any OpenBSD developer should be free to put it in the OpenBSD CVS tree and use it for reference. Just don't use it in the product. Is that what you are saying ? If so, seek some legal advice, or read up on the laws of your country.
(...)
> Uhh, how is it clearly intended to harass the orginal copyright holder? If he would have said "contact this guy if you have any complaints" then yes, I would agree.
Obviously you are playing dumb here. See where that leads you.
>> Marcus Glocker apparently knows no shame.
> Disproven.
Unprovable.
>>> It's a common developer etiquette to inform the other party _privately_
Riight. Just because you would like it to be so does not make this statement true. I agree that it would be courteous, but it is far from common etiquette.
> You are entirely correct. What Michael has shown us is he is out for blood. He acted very harshly. Certainly this is within his right however it shows he is rude and inconsiderate.
"Very harshly" would quite simply be a C&D notice and attached lawsuit filed against Marcus, the operators of the OpenBSD CVS server, and anybody else directly or indirectly involved, without any further explanation nor offer of helping to rectify the situation without involving lengthy and costly legal battles for all involved. Get your "harshity"-scale right, please.
It may have been less than overly courteous, but it is far from the devilishness you make it out to be.
> If it's in a sandbox (read: not pressed on a CD or released in to -STABLE) then how is that published?
wget http://repository-path/bcw.c
Anybody and everybody can do that, without login credentials or even any association with the OpenBSD project. Those files are openly linked on ViewCVS, too. That is publishing, if you like it or not -- just because it did not get put into an arbitrary branch of the CVS called RELEASE does not mean that it was not published in public.
> If I post some code in a copy-n-paste website so some other developer can grab it later, is that published?
If you don't take care of authentication, yes. Like it or not.
> At what /exact/ point is something published?
When a third party can get it.
> When people can publicly get it? So, does this mean that you aren't allowed to develop online or have your data stored in a publicly accessible place so others can assist?
Sure you are. Just not with other people's code under a different license that does not allow relicensing it under your license. Simple as that.
> Again, you missed the point. The OpenBSD community isn't bitching about others using OpenSSH.
Yeah, it better not. Others are not violiting the license on that (excellent) piece of software.
> Actually, now that I think about it, they are bitching about a couple things. One of them is they don't trust Theo. Then fine -- why are you using code written by someone you don't trust? You obviously MUST trust the code isn't stolen, so their is /some/ level of trust? hmm.. kettle... pot...black.
Your analogies fail to impress. First of all, you love to generalize. It makes things so simple, I know. Only, they are not. I don't have to trust everything Theo says blindly, even if I use a piece of code he wrote. By the same token, I don't have to respect him at all to do so (although I do, but that is a different question entirely). The world ain't black and white, kid. (to paraphrase other ad-hominem attacks in this thread ... Obviously, since you are not of my opinion, you must be a juvenile prick. Right ? Yeah ...)
> Then again, why am I online and arguing this...you can't stop fanatics. I suppose this makes me a fanatic as well... blast!
Again with the ad-hominem. Obviously everybody who does not share your opinion of the world must be a rabid hypocritic fanatic. Even if the maybe, somewhere have a point. Even if you consider that point as a rude insult to yourself or your all-knowing master Theo. (That is sarcasm, btw. Just making sure.)
This whole debacle is unfortunate, but all this bickering hardly helps. The behavior expressed by the slighted bcw developers has been mature, adult, and well-tempered. It may not be to your liking, but you can't accuse them of attacking anybody ad-hominem or stepping over their boundaries. The backlash from the OpenBSD community (and Theo in particular) strikes me as a childish temper-tantrum of a 5-year-old that knows he's wrong, but really doesn't want to admit it. You know. Ego. Does that make me a GPLetist worthy of scorn, a linux-fanboi who just wants pretty graphicxxxx, or a Micro$oft investor who enjoys in-fighting between the free software crowds ? Heck, have I even hinted at what license I use on my own code ? Thought so. The answer might surprise you.
By Anonymous Coward (69.232.52.164) on
> > > Errm... get your facts straight. It was never published.
> >
> > It was put on a public CVS server. The original copyright holders didn't find out about the violation by illegally sniffing on a particular person's hard disk. No, they just had to look at the public available code.
> So? What's your point? What is the difference between working collectively and working privately?
> If this was all behind closed doors then this wouldn't be *OPEN*BSD, now would it? Just because something is in a sandbox doesn't mean it's going to get used. If you were a developer then you would know that.
And if YOU were a developer you would know that it doesn't matter if it is used or not. Copyright is what it says, the right to copy stuff.
And in this case, the code was copied without permission. Case closed.
> > Marcus Glocker apparently knows no shame.
> Disproven.
Obviously proven.
> You are entirely correct. What Michael has shown us is he is out for blood. He acted very harshly. Certainly this is within his right however it shows he is rude and inconsiderate.
Yeah, and? It is HIS code. HE got robbed.
> > It was published, the GPL copyright notice removed, and illegally stuck a BSD license to it. Calling code steeling and publishing it "under development" gives the phrase "under development" a whole new meaning. That was apparently done by or under the guidance of an experienced developer, Marcus Glocker. So experienced that it will be difficult for him to claim ignorance.
>
> If it's in a sandbox (read: not pressed on a CD or released in to -STABLE) then how is that published?
It is in a PUBLIC archive. That is obviously published.
> At what /exact/ point is something published? When people can publicly get it? So, does this mean that you aren't allowed to develop online or have your data stored in a publicly accessible place so others can assist?
Stuff is published when anybody can see it.
You can put YOUR data up online all you want. But you can NOT put up things that belong to others. Any decent human being, and certainly any real software developer, knows that.
> Again, you missed the point. The OpenBSD community isn't bitching about others using OpenSSH.
You were...
> Then again, why am I online and arguing this...you can't stop fanatics. I suppose this makes me a fanatic as well... blast!
Yup, it makes you a fanatic, since you appear to be a blinded fanboy. It is all about a copyright violation, and that should have been it. To any rational human being, it is completely irresponsible how the BSD community (talking about "shame"...) is trying to put the blame on the Linux guys. It clearly is a copyright violation on the OpenBSD side, and that is ALL that matters.
By r thompson (67.77.220.225) jreidthompson@earthlink.net on
> > Errm... get your facts straight. It was never published.
Errm... get your facts straight. It was published.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publish
...
is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information – the activity of making information available for public view. In some cases, authors may be their own publishers.
Traditionally, the term refers to the distribution of printed works such as books and newspapers. With the advent of digital information systems and the Internet, the scope of publishing has expanded to include electronic resources, such as the electronic versions of books and periodicals, as well as websites, blogs, and the like.
...
By Anonymous Coward (80.171.82.108) on
Sure it was, you could download it from the openbsd.org website.
> It's a common developer etiquette to inform the other party _privately_
Maybe it is, I don't know. Sure Michael Buesch could have handled the issue more delicately. But it's also not very nice to, you know, publish GPL code under a BSD license without asking the copyright holder.
Also, didn't Marcus ever contact the original bcm43xx developers? I'm asking because, while it is certainly okay to look at GPL code and study it for your own purposes, if you're going to rely heavily on someone else's software for your project, I believe it's also proper geek etiquette that you let them know and keep them updated.
> It's amazing how Linux fanboys can adopt OpenSSH and yet reject BSD code. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Linux fanboys aren't GPL fanboys. They run software with all kinds of licenses: MIT, BSD, GPL, MPL, ... basically all you can type with three uppercase letters. But that's not the issue here. The issue here was code that was written by Linux kernel developers and published under the GPLv2. They were willing to look at relicensing parts of it on a case-by-case basis. But they were miffed, understandably, that it was illegally relicensed. I think most people would be, whether they're working on Linux or something else entirely. It has little to do with the OS.
By foobar (209.121.162.219) on
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (71.195.73.218) on
It was not deliberately included. It's called BSD license. Nice call.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (209.121.162.219) on
> It was not deliberately included. It's called BSD license. Nice call.
>
No, most BSD licensed code does not contain the anti-GPL advertisement clause.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.66.14.254) on
By old3n (64.81.246.230) on
Really? Could you please help us out here and point those "specificities"?
The LICENCE file in OpenSSH's root contains a lot of stuff, but I couldn't find anything that would make it GPL-unfriendly.
By Matthew R. Dempsky (76.182.204.23) on
> deliberately make it incompatible with GPL'd works [...]
Go look at OpenSSH's LICENSE file and point out precisely which part you're talking about.
Or perhaps you were referring to the OpenSSL license and were ignorant of the fact that OpenSSL is not part of the OpenBSD project?
By Anonymous Coward (71.59.26.208) on
History can't be undone and published open source code can't be unpublished. It can only be assumed it will linger around forever:
(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...
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (80.145.6.70) on
>
> 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:
>
>
> 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.
It can be fixed up, by (A) committing a newer version with proper copyright notice as required by the original GPL of the stolen code, or (B) by someone with "cvs admin -o" access obliterating the infringing versions.
I don't suggest (B), an apology for (1) the infringement and (2) the response to the Linux guys' peaceful approach are adequate anyways and I doubt (A) would be much of a problem after that.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (69.232.52.164) on
> >
>
> It can be fixed up, by (A) committing a newer version with proper copyright notice as required by the original GPL of the stolen code, or (B) by someone with "cvs admin -o" access obliterating the infringing versions.
>
> I don't suggest (B), an apology for (1) the infringement and (2) the response to the Linux guys' peaceful approach are adequate anyways and I doubt (A) would be much of a problem after that.
Yes, and that should have been done as soon as the email from Michael was received. Easy enough, and everybody would have lived happily ever after.
Instead, we got this temper tantrum, and fanboys trying to defend copyright infringement...
By Andrew J. Stephen (125.238.41.237) on
> 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.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (201.34.47.150) on
> 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.
Speaking of ethics, you could try Windows 2003 Server. You know, Bill Gates gives lots of money to charity.
Comments
By Andrew J. Stephen (125.238.41.237) on
> > 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.
>
> Speaking of ethics, you could try Windows 2003 Server. You know, Bill Gates gives lots of money to charity.
This is precisely the sort of ignorant, juvenile response we in the FLOSS community at large have come to expect from the OpenBSD community in particular. Thanks for reaffirming this stereotype.
Someone broke the law. They were caught. The appropriate response is to apologise, fix the problem and move on.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (71.130.199.165) on
You think an AC represents the OpenBSD community? With this statement, you come off with a 'holier than thou' attitude that OBSD is accused of having...while considering yourself a representative of the 'FLOSS community at large.' Thank YOU for reaffirming this stereotype.
Comments
By Andrew J. Stephen (125.238.41.237) on
>
> You think an AC represents the OpenBSD community? With this statement, you come off with a 'holier than thou' attitude that OBSD is accused of having...while considering yourself a representative of the 'FLOSS community at large.' Thank YOU for reaffirming this stereotype.
I think that the fact that /every single comment/ here that defends Mr. Buesch, the GPL (since when did this issue become one of licensing differences? It is simple breach of copyright by an OpenBSD contributer.) or even offers balanced commentary on the issue is modded down quite severely proved my point.
On the other hand the same illiterate ACs writing in capital letters abusing the GPL, Linux, Mr. Beusch and copyright law or providing similarly illiterate OBSD cheerleading are modded up.
Since when did defending an author's copyright, irrespective of the license they use, become 'holier than thou'? You tell me who is reaffirming a stereotype.
And next time, use your own name.
Comments
By rgb (71.138.167.251) on
Perhaps a "have you cooled down yet?" prompt should replace the captcha for the time being.
By Leonardo Rodrigues (201.34.47.150) leonardovcr@gmail.com on don't have
> > > 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.
> >
> > Speaking of ethics, you could try Windows 2003 Server. You know, Bill Gates gives lots of money to charity.
>
> This is precisely the sort of ignorant, juvenile response we in the FLOSS community at large have come to expect from the OpenBSD community in particular. Thanks for reaffirming this stereotype.
>
> Someone broke the law. They were caught. The appropriate response is to apologise, fix the problem and move on.
Heh, it was me who made the comment regarding the win2k3.
Now, c'mon, are you guys so sensitive?
I wrote that, because I found it funny that someone would stop using an OS , all of a sudden, just because of this chain of events regarding the bcw driver.
If one would want to really help on the ethical (charity) side, one could support Microsoft systems, since Bill Gates is quite a supporter of charity acts, and employs lots of people. Is something wrong with that?
But, in my opinion, software should be judged on technical merit.
Now, WHY my comment regarding the win2k3 server is interpreted as an "ignorant and juvenile" rant, "representing the whole OpenBSD community", I don't know. I wanted it to be taken as a joke, really. It had nothing to do with the bcw driver fuss.
Now my thoughts on that subject. Buesch really should have contacted the developer privately. But, the OpenBSD guys really overreacted and made the bigger mistake of changing the subject, and deleting the driver, instead of apologizing and working with Buesch to fix things. I'm an avid supporter of OpenBSD, and I won't stop supporting it after what happened. You know, EVERYONE makes mistakes. Also, everyone knows Theo's personality. Theo de Raadt can be the asshole of the century, but if he keeps being true to the project objectives, I really don't care. If he's mean, that's HIS and HIS problem ALONE! I completely disagree with what Theo did. I don't judge him, nor I can judge anyone. I don't even know these guys. But I respect him, as every person should respect each other. And, hey, the world won't end just because of this :P
It seems like people misunderstands the word "community". It turned out to represent little groups that don't care and even don't like each other. Where's the sense of fellowship and respect that every single human should have? Isn't open source software SUPPOSED to have an united community? Then, why these so called "BSD guys" and "Linux people" keep throwing stones at each other? Seems like humans really LOVE to divide and classify themselves. I guess it's a way of feeling "superior" to the other group. Heh, the ways of inflating one's ego...
Buuuut, that's life right? It's the world we live in =)
Seems that I got carried away and have written a bit too much...
Oh, and sorry for the bad english. I'm brazillian, and portuguese is my native language =) I tried my best not to make mistakes...
By Anonymous Coward (81.107.47.180) on
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.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (77.128.142.77) on
No you are not. And it proves that the OpenBSD people don't want to become honest. In fact, if you look at the head version comment you can read an insult directed at the original copyright holders. Even worse, the original copyright holder's e-mail address was added, clearly intended so people can harass the original copyright holder. Instead of having some very clear words with the actual wrongdoer, the particular OpenBSD developer.
Comments
By Ian Monroe (70.243.252.57) on http://www.monroe.nu
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (85.214.23.162) on
show up in their works of authorship:
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.ports/5601
http://www.monkey.org/openbsd/archive/ports/0402/msg00005.html
And public name-calling too:
http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/openbsd/2004-01/2093.html
Ah, and the OpenBSD developers don't want to let the argument
that it's not been formally relased yet be valid either:
http://www.monkey.org/openbsd/archive/ports/0401/msg00497.html
You're digging your own graves, people.
PS: Don't worry about banning this IPv4 address in your pf rules,
like you did with the IPv4 address of the MirBSD main server.
There are plenty of shell servers around, and you're only hurting
more people in the process. Besides, it's childish to pf block-drop
people whose opinion you don't want to read because it may be right.
By marco (208.0.111.110) on
>
> No you are not. And it proves that the OpenBSD people don't want to become honest. In fact, if you look at the head version comment you can read an insult directed at the original copyright holders. Even worse, the original copyright holder's e-mail address was added, clearly intended so people can harass the original copyright holder. Instead of having some very clear words with the actual wrongdoer, the particular OpenBSD developer.
his email address also showed up, publicly, and to many, many, more people, in the email he sent. the cat was already out of the bag
By Ian Monroe (70.243.252.57) on http://www.monroe.nu
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?
By Anonymous Coward (216.68.198.57) on
Less is better than more sometimes. Less actually stops. :)
Topic over.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (81.107.47.180) on
>
> Less is better than more sometimes. Less actually stops. :)
>
> Topic over.
Nice job on that whole first amendment thing.
Comments
By Brynet (Brynet) on
Not everyone here is American, idiot..
By Anonymous Coward (69.66.53.30) on
By asmodai (82.92.216.8) asmodai@in-nomine.org on http://www.in-nomine.org
funny. Do I even need to bring up the whole issue with FreeBSD, Linux and certain ATA code from a few years ago?
http://slashdot.org/bsd/01/09/24/1432223.shtml
Perhaps 6 years too long for some people to remember...
Comments
By Ian Monroe (70.243.252.57) on http://www.monroe.nu
>
> funny. Do I even need to bring up the whole issue with FreeBSD, Linux and certain ATA code from a few years ago?
>
> http://slashdot.org/bsd/01/09/24/1432223.shtml
>
> Perhaps 6 years too long for some people to remember...
...I thought such situations were always handled privately in the OBSD world?
;)
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (70.117.144.171) on
> >
> > funny. Do I even need to bring up the whole issue with FreeBSD, Linux and certain ATA code from a few years ago?
> >
> > http://slashdot.org/bsd/01/09/24/1432223.shtml
> >
> > Perhaps 6 years too long for some people to remember...
>
> ...I thought such situations were always handled privately in the OBSD world?
> ;)
>
You are correct.
And the article that is being pointed to is for FreeBSD. This difference is important.
By Anonymous Coward (70.66.14.254) on
By Mark Woodward (24.91.171.78) markw@mohawksoft.com on
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.
Comments
By Anonymous Coward (67.64.89.177) on
By Anonymous Coward (200.139.119.140) on
By jjohnson (24.84.49.76) hroomba@yahoo.com on
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?
Comments
By Ian Monroe (70.243.252.57) on
They did offer to relicense functions as BSD on a case-by-case basis.
By Pieter Hulshoff (80.126.111.3) phulshof@xs4all.nl on
> 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