IP Theft in the Linux Kernel

Søren Schmidt was browsing through the 2.4.10 linux kernel source when he saw something that looked a bit familiar. Too familiar in fact. Søren is the principle developer of FreeBSD's ATA drivers, including FreeBSD's support for ATA RAID cards, and as he looked through the linux/drivers/ide/ files the sense of deja vu was overwhelming. Read on for more.

"They just took my code and filed off the copyright" said Søren. "This is clearest with the two header files hptraid.h and pdcraid.h. Compare these with FreeBSD's ata-raid.h, and just look at the similarities." And it's true that these two header files certainly look like a chopped up copy of the FreeBSD header, after a quick search-and-replace. "The reading of the RAID config from the disks is their own code, but is clearly "inspired" from our code," said Søren, "but that's encouraged by the license. It's the verbatim use of the other code without retaining the copyright that's the problem."

ata-raid.h, and the other files, are copyright Søren, and released under the three clause BSD license, which includes the restriction "Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice". So using these files, or significant portions of them, in your own code, without retaining the copyright information, as has happened here, is prohibited.

You may be thinking "This is only a couple of header files, what's the big deal?". As Søren says "The problem here is that the structures in the headers is the whole story. That info tells how you read the proprietary struct off the disks, and was reverse engineered and documented by me after a lot of effort." Søren's intellectual property is tied up in those files.

Right now, Søren is in discussions with the authors of the Linux ATA drivers (employed by RedHat) to ensure that his copyright notice is returned to these and other files, and to ensure that this situation does not recur. And it is hoped that an amicable solution can be reached.

Comments

Pretty sad, indeed.

[dinotrac]

First GNOME steals from khtml without attribution and now this.
Oh -- and steals is the right term.
This is one of the few ways you can steal BSD'd code. The license lets you do pretty much whatever you want.

Proper attribution is not a big thing to ask, especially as meager compensation to a job well done. If the code's worth taking, it's certainly worth attributing.

The worst part is that it allows the Microsofts of this world to say that free developers really aren't that different from themselves.
Phooey.

Re:Slashdot License Enforcement Bureau

[MikeBabcock]

A long time ago, Slashdot became the place for all news nerds might enjoy ... including Star Wars and the like. Feel free to edit your preferences to not include these stories.

Yeah, that's right.

[Inoshiro]

Just post anything at all about the situation as an AC and get modded really high.

Where are the backups to your statements?

This reminds me of when there was the large Exodus outage, and in the explanaion story an AC claimed to be some chick who was abuse my Taco (funny since Taco is in Michigan, Exodus cage is very not in Michigan, etc).

Moderators: don't mod up stuff unless there is PROOF or this person has put a real name behind their statements. Posts like this are just trolls meant no spread disinformation.

Mr Kettle, meet Mr Pot!

[thorpej]

Check out the very first revisions of the Linux compatibility module in FreeBSD. It looks quite a lot like the NetBSD Linux compatibility module of the same vintage, which was written by Frank van der Linden and committed to the NetBSD source tree (which was the first public release of that code) -- yet all the files say Soren Schmidt at the top.. Amazing!

Why was this important?

[LinuxATA]

Congrats Nik, Nice job on hurting FreeBSD. We will see where the so called IP borrowing leads to in the near future. Specifically things like 48-bit LBA, MMIO VirtualDMA under taskfile rules, Mt Rainier GAA decoding and DeIcing, and the new Ultra133. The real kicker will be when I publish the correct and legal headers w/ Linux ATA Development and Promise Copyrights and GPL and require that usage of the information carry the copyrights and terms of usage. This will also include a set of headers for HighPoint, and Silicon Image (formerly CMD). Since I know for a fact that FreeBSD can not do CMD RAID, nor has it heard about it. I am only here to validate your child-like response, as a future reference point to enjoy you choking down the crow you are spreading. I have no issues with Soren (mispelled sorry), but your mistakes will have a price. I hope you feel really good about yourself, because you are a big man. Only because you wanted to thumb us, the Linux Community, in the eye, is the reason you thought it would be useful to paint the world a bloody gaping pie-hole. I really hope you enjoy your time of glory and fame, because you have failed to address my request to clear my name from the issues. A price that would have been cheap pay earlier but, not affordable now. For now it is time to take FreeBSD and all the other variations of BSD to school, watch learn and I will require that my work and my IP be acknowledged in all of these from now on out. I understand that this may prevent you from ever having support and access to some really cool stuff coming down the pipes, because of the License you will be require to acknowledge where and who you are borrowing IP. Please have a good day. Respectfully, Andre Hedrick Linux ATA Development