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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.
And yet, if it had been incorporated into WinXP, nobody would ever have been the wiser. Who would this guy be whining to then?
Seriously, though, if someone used the code, it must be used under the correct license. Same as if someone uses the linux kernel. They gotta use the GPL.
Again, copyright (and licensing) is a double-edged sword.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Even though the license was violated by other free software developers, I'm glad to see him pursuing this. If we ever want to see the various free software licenses accepted by the general community, we need to show them that we take them seriously, even if that means going after some of our own.
The license doesn't have to be the same one as long as they are compatible. gnu.org has this list of compatible licenses.. note that the modified BSD license is included as compatible.
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
The 3-clause BSD licence does not contain the "advertisment" clause.
It was removed July 22 1999.
I don't harbor any resentment against the guy, but this was bound to happen sooner or later. I'm sorry it had to turn out this way.
-anon
(yes, I have an account; no, I'm not going to use it here)
The requirement that a copyright clause remain intact is NOT the same as the dreaded "BSD advertising clause".
In fact, the current BSD license is completely compatible with the GPL (Just remember that the commingled result must be GPLed). See the FSF list of GPL-Compatible licenses.
Need I say more?
If you have a problem with my views, REPLY, don't moderate!
The copyright clause is not the same as the advertisement clause in the original BSD license which causes the incompatibility. The copyright need only be in the source code; the advertisement clause means (among other things) that if you buy a boxed version, it has to be on the outside of the box.
The license in question here is the modified BSD license. (same page, earlier on)
No, not really. At the end of my post is the BSD license template from opensource.org. Basically, you can use the code in any program you like, under any license you like, just so long as you and anyone who distributes the code includes a simple copyright statement. Some MS tools have been known to include this (especially from Windows NT), and I'm sure some other /.ers can point you to strange places that BSD copyright statements come up.
Since the license is so short, might as well include it right here for people too lazy to click:
Here is the license template:
Copyright (c) ,
All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
Neither the name of the nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
Here is the location at RedHat where you can get the code and patch. Link found on The Linux IDE Project Site
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Okay, so Søren reverse engineers the proprietary data structures developed at great cost by corporations, and then bitches when his work is ripped off by one of his fellow Open Source travelers. Give me a break!
First, what Soren did was not plagiarism (claiming another's work as his own) nor theft (stealing another's property). He just made a part that works as a replacement for a factory part, much like the thriving parts industry in the auto world.
What Red Hat's developers did wasn't "theft", since they were not required to have permission to use or modify and re-release the code. It was plagiarism -- essentially they took some of Soren's parts (which were free for the taking), filed off the serial numbers, then stamped their own on.
It's not illegal to sell someone else's parts if you acquired them legally, but it is illegal to claim them as your own make without permission, regardless of how they were acquired.
The only place Soren might have problems is if the driver algorithms were patented, and even there drivers exist in a world of murky law apart from applications. I seem to remember some abortive efforts by sound and video card manufacturers to squash third-party open-source drivers that got such negative press reaction that they were abandoned.
-- Old Man Kensey
Then tell them that on the linux-kernel mailing list:
.org
linux-kernel@vger.kernel
You don't need to be subscribed to the list to successfully send stuff to it, so post away!
If you actually do want to subscribe to the list send a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org with the following in the body:
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Hope this helps!
I would just like to point out that virtually everything on earth either (a) uses or (b) has used BSD-derived TCP/IP code.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
In X? COMPOSE-o-/
t ml
t xt
:)
See also:
http://www.uni-ulm.de/~s_smasch/X11/input8bit.h
and
http://www.uni-ulm.de/~s_smasch/X11/multi_keys.
(of course, if you're not running X, this means nothing.)
BRx.
Life after capitalism? The participatory economics project
The Windows FTP command is bassed on BSD sources, but the user interface does not show any copyright information.
It is said that also the TCP/IP stack is based on BSD sources.
Can anyone affirm that Microsoft source code retains the mandatory copyright information ?
Another question. This headers define an interface between Hardware and Software. This interface was not created by Sorem Schmit. Can he claim copyright rights on them ?
MOD THE CHILD UP!
http://uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0012.3/0 538.html
> I've read everything that I can find regarding support of the Highpoint
> controllers RAID functionality under Linux, and I understand what the issues
> have been. The one promising bit of information that I dug up in this process is
> that the 'pseudo' RAID functionality of the Highpoint and Promise IDE RAID
> controllers is now supported in FreeBSD (4.2-RELEASE and 5.0-CURRENT). My
> question is, can the new BSD code be leveraged to add support for these
> controllers to the Linux kernel, and could we reasonably expect to see such
> support in the near future?
>
> (I think that most all of the relevant/important bits are in ata-raid.c and/or
> ata-raid.h. In
> any event, the IDE/ATA guy over on the FreeBSD side is Soren Schmidt
> (sos@freebsd.org), and he
> wrote all of the stuff for this.
How else do you think StarOffice can even attempt to read Microsoft Office documents?
Because until a couple of years ago, MS documented the file formats on MSDN. They're no longer publically available, but MS will still give them to you if you provide a detailed description of what you want to use them for.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Please read up on licenses before pretending to be an expert on them in a public forum. The current BSD license *allows* consumers of the code to re-license it under any license they choose, so long as they comply with the rather narrow requirements spelled out in the BSD license.
The only thing the BSD license doesn't allow -- literally, one of only three things disallowed by the license -- is to take BSD code and redistribute it without giving proper credit to the original author (by means of copyright statements). It's rather sad to see employees of such a prominent Open Source vendor failing to comply even with this simple requirement. Unfortunately, as repeatedly evidenced by discussions on Slashdot, most programmers never bother to read the licenses on the code they're using.
Look at this link http://www.linux-ide.org/ and especially this one http://people.redhat.com/arjanv/pdcraid/
....
The copyrights are back. And have been since yesterday. But that is not correct since this code is not exactly like the original.
The comment should say something like "Structures derived from ataraid.h written by SS."
And of course the structures should be documented, member by member, even if SS did not do that originally!
Also one wonders who managed to allow both u_int32_t and u32 in the kernel code. One of those alternatives should be removed as soon as poosible. There is nothing as bad as non-consistency in sourcecode anywhere.
Definitely ugly code. Reminds me of work where I have to watch people writing code like that all day long
Søren is from Denmark (so am I) and we have these three funny looking charactes:
æ ø å
"æ" is like the "ea" in "dead"
"å" is close to the "o" in "holy",
but the "ø" is a bit tricky to pronounce. It's kinda like the "ou" in "mourn", but with more bass.
So Sørens name is pronounced:
S + mourn + honest + n
= Søren! On top of that there is an expression in Danish, which goes "av for Søren", which means "auch for Søren" and you say that when you hurt. And there's another one "Det var Sørens!" which means "I'll be damned!".
It's a common name.... and I need to get a life.
-Kraft
Live and let live
At what point is John stealing Bob's work?
When he studies Bob's source?
No.
When he uses Bob's concepts?
No.
If he uses the same identifiers, or identifier structure as Bob did?
No.
If he simply cut&paste's a few lines from Bob's code.
No.
You forgot one bullet point:
If he violates Bob's copyright and license.
Yes. Assuming Bob's code is under the BSD license, then John can use it in any way he wishes, so long as he keeps the copyright untouched. But once he alters or removes the copyright line he is "stealing" Bob's work.
What gets me is why some folks finds it so onerous to give credit where credit is due.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
The Linux-IDE site has already been mentioned, but I thought it interesting to point out a particular part of it that hasn't been mentioned. This also follows up some of the "don't download 2.4.10 until proper credit is given" whiners.
;)
check out patch-to-2.4.10
Try these few lines:
+++ linux2410/drivers/ide/hptraid.h Mon Sep 24 10:35:39 2001
@@ -1,4 +1,32 @@
-
+/*-
+ * Copyright (c) 2000,2001 Søren Schmidt
+ * All rights reserved.
...and also...
+++ linux2410/drivers/ide/pdcraid.c Mon Sep 24 10:37:13 2001
@@ -12,9 +12,7 @@
Authors: Arjan van de Ven
-
-
-
+ Based on work done by Søren Schmidt for FreeBSD
That's good enough for me, plus, the timestamp on the patch file is Sept 24.
Does anyone read patch files anymore?
TiFox
-- I'd say your post was about 3 monkeys, 18 minutes.
(Modified a bit because the comments.pl on slashdot would crib about some junk chars)
It is clear that BSD is going off the deep end.
Linux ATA Development has a Legal signed NDA for the proper development of
the complete and correct FastTrak(tm) open sources driver.
I will soon publish the complete header codes in a original header w/
a Linux ATA Development Copyright and Promise Technologies Copyright.
The driver will have a GPL statement be issued in the headers and source
files to prevent the usage in BSDish environments. I have not tolerance
for being labled a thief.
I will prove the point that Linux does not "STEAL IP", then watch BSD
"borrow" from Linux. Just like we will watch 48-BIT Addressing be
borrowed without credit. Just like we will watch the new Ultra133 drivers
be borrowed without credit. BSD has no legal documentation to develop
these changes or access to hardware. We will watch and prove where IP
comes from in the world of storage.
Ever noticed how Linux had Ultra100 support 10 minutes after the release
of public information on June 5, 2000 8:00am PDT?
For now the Linux Open Source drivers for SoftRAID need to go away.
Not to worry they will return in full swing.
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 11:32:52 -0800
From: ---deleted---
To: Andre Hedrick
Subject: RE: Research FastTrak66 Ultra ATA/66
Hi Andre,
Very interesting work, I can't guess how you did it. Here is our beta
driver for the Fasttrak. This is the one I told you about. It uses our Raid
engine (engine3.a). Sorry, but as I mentioned there is no possibility of us
releasing the source code for this. However you can get a good idea of how
the engine works by viewing our driver source. Please do not distribute
this driver or the engine binary to anyone. I've included some quick
documentation too, I remember there is one step missing but it is obvious.
begin 600 FT03.TGZ
<BIG SNIP>
end
Here is the proof that I could have done this long before the BSD folks
had a clue about soft raid engines wrt addon cards.
Regards,
Andre Hedrick
People will do tomorrow what they did today because that is what they did yesterday.
Hi, I just noticed a post on the linux-kernel mailing list from Andre Hendrick regarding this. It appears that the "Linux ATA Development has a legal signed NDA for the proper development of the complete and correct FastTrak(tm) open sources driver."
He even got a e-mail from FastTrak which included the beta binary driver, back in November 1999.
Odd. (The relavent e-mail should be here by tomorrow).