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IP Theft in the Linux Kernel
"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.
The programmer probably didn't know how to insert that funny looking o character in "Soren" using vi, so just left it out...
It says a RedHat employe wrote the code ... the guy stole the code and probably played quake for 2 months. Thats why you strip off the copyright.
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
Yeah, I hate it when I accidentally search and replace a bunch of variable names in a block of code and then forget to leave out the BSD license notice.
Wait a minute! Are you saying that these header files were written by Sauron? Because that's what came out of my mouth when I pronounced it the way you describe. One license to rule them all, eh?
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
He probably just hit M-x accidentally-remove-copyright-header in emacs.
Happens to me all the time. Or was it diff --remove-copyright-header.