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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.

81 of 1,000 comments (clear)

  1. Re:w00t! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    suck my micropenis.

  2. IIEMBF...IWKHG! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    early IF&nbspI&nbspEVER&nbspMEEPT&nbspBEN&nbspFRANKLIN&n bspI&nbspWILL&nbspKICK&nbspHIS&nbspGOAT! post

    1. Re:IIEMBF...IWKHG! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Damn you "editors" modded that poast down fast! Now ownly the twolls will see it!

  3. a goat post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    is the thing we need most here, methinks.

  4. I knew LINUX was too good to be true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Jeez...you would think that people would know that just because you stole the software fair and square, it doesn't make it "free" software.

  5. goatsex by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    here! have some goatsex!

  6. Re:Come one! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I am lame !

  7. Heh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic


    Linux advocates spend so long looking at Microsoft and supposed GPL violations and theft, that they don't notice the Linux violation of another license.

    To be honest, it is most likely due to an oversight on behalf of the person responsible for that area of the code in the Linux kernel.

    Apart from the copyright message (would that also have to appear at boot time?) - using the BSD code should not create any licensing issues - it is possible to take BSD code and license it under the (L)GPL I think, but not the other way around.

    Looking at the files the similarities are quite obvious! Bet we see a load of anti-BSD posts though... better try and protect my karma somehow. :)

  8. WARNING: GOATSEX LINK IN PARENT! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    You heard.

  9. Re:w00t! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    You can't handle a micropenis!

  10. yes! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I am lame!

  11. Re:Jumping to conclusions.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Oh, don't forget the inevitable series of '*BSD is dead' trolls too. :-)

  12. BSD is dying ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Solaris saved you in your workplace, and yet you treated it like garbage.
    And that's what you are, the King of Refuse. So bow down to SlashDot if you want. Bow to it. Bow to the King of Slime, the King of Filth, the King of putrescence!

    Boo !

    Boo !

    Rubbish! Filth! Slime! Muck! BOO! BOO! BOO!

    1. Re:BSD is dying ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Offtopic ?
      It's about slashdot itself dammit !

  13. Re:w00t! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Fuck you.

    -- The AC Avenger

    I'm a raging homosexual!

  14. Re:linux devs = 3rd rate trash by teknopurge · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    FUCK YES. Linux is a slow piece of trash. fear openbsd, even on the desktop. mod muh ass down!

  15. Re:My Experience With Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Dude, that's funny! Nice troll.

  16. Re:The Pot Calling the kettle black by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Troll/Flambat alert. Don't fall for it, just ignore and mod down.

  17. Re:My Experience With Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    You write a very nice verbage. To bad that you got your head shoved so far up Bill Gates arse to ever know any better. Maybe they didn't perform as good as your microcrap servers. And maybe you also don't have the slightest clue how to setup a linux server and optimize it for the best performance. Sorry but just because you say so doesn't mean its so. Linux runs on some of the highest volume servers in the world and well it does great for them. So take a class, get a book, find a geek who can teach you to wield your OS, but don't pretend to be a linux expert just because you failed.

  18. Re:Er... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Yes they can. U moron, me Jane.

  19. by the power of greyskull by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    i am anarchist!
    i go around fighting facist nazis and facist cops.
    i keep the world safe for freedom.

  20. Yeah, I'm the BSD troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Doesn't it say something about the mentality of Free software programmers when they steal other Open Source code and pass it off as their own? A little self-aggrandizing? A little disingenuous?

    But what more can you expect from people who have no concept of Property Rights? "What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine." I'm not saying that everyone should go out and shut away all their source, but merely that an ideology that interprets "Free" as "Take away as many freedoms as necessary to ensure that no one can ever write the software to their own advantage" is hollow and disgusting.

    Freedom comes when things are really Free. What's mine is mine and what's yours is yours. If I want to allow you to use my stuff, I offer it with no strings attached. If I don't want to share, I won't. The "F"SF doesn't believe in Freedom and the GPL doesn't promote anything resembling Freedom.

    1. Re:Yeah, I'm the BSD troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Uh if BSD was really about no strings attached code, why the fuck is this little ninny whining about someone making a struct that looked like his.

      Also the struct is the in the fucking hardware, how different can the shit be man. sheesh.

  21. Re:Say it ain't so! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Yeah, right. Just like Russia too, I'm sure. Don't you guys get it? The US is in charge, that's the way it is, and that's the way it'll always be.

  22. bomb the italian government. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    they are facist bastereds....

  23. Re:Yeah but BSD stole its TCP/IP stack! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Ha, I almost believed you for a second there!

  24. BSD license sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    some egomaniac control freak nerds write some code and want the whole world to pat their back (and gicve them nice jobs, etc.)

    attention !
    if you write open software people might just take it and not give a damn about your shitty license !
    get it ?
    good. people should start writing more public domain software, now that's free !

  25. Re:The truth comes out like a gay Army private! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    That was a-musing. I think .. I think I may have just wee-d myself. Oh dear. Help me, grandpops!

  26. Re:And yet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Flamebait because it's true! You go girl!

  27. Re:Not the first time by sting3r · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Hey AC-

    Where did you guys work?

    -sting3r

  28. Re:My Experience With Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    C'mon, boys .. bite! Bite! Ahhh, gotcha. My, you're a slippery one eh? Gonna have *you* in my butties tonight - heh heh heh!

  29. Re:wow, this is a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I hope the moderator who modded this troll is meta-moderated straight into the depths of darkest hell. You are an insufferable ass.

  30. So I guess . . . by smnolde · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    BSD is still very much alive and kicking.

  31. Re:Licensing Problems? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Ha ha. Nice troll, Ted.

  32. Re:FreeBSD dead? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I thought you said "where is my porn ".

    Cathy D.

  33. Re:The Pot Calling the kettle black by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Oh yeah, like it takes five years to develop a fucking data structure...

    P.S. It ain't stealing if nothing's missing. Remember this, and your soul may yet be saved.

  34. Re:My Experience With Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I'm sorry to see all these fanatical linux zealots crap on you over this. I think i'll post this anonymously as my charma cannot take another dent.

  35. Re:My Experience With Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Hook Line And Sinker... Look for more of my work in the future.

    dr_foo()

  36. Re:My Experience With Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Winbloze man sez ...
    I consider myself to be very technically inclined having programmed in VB for the last 8 years doing kernel level programming.
    This is an incredible statement even for a Troll. If you are not a Troll, then you can be best classified as "aggressively stupid."
  37. Re:The Pot Calling the kettle black by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Truth hurts, doesn't it? Reverse engineering is good, right?

  38. Re:The Pot Calling the kettle black by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    "innocent until proven guilty"...
    But only for the good guys, clearly...

  39. Re:Excellent! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    No problem. Glad to help a fellow troll!

  40. Re:FreeBSD dead? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I thought running it on the firewall proved it wasn't dead

  41. Re:Yeah but BSD stole its TCP/IP stack! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    You should write books on this sort of stuff!

  42. Re:The truth comes out like a gay Army private! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    But .. but, gramps? What's happened to you? You're all wet .. and what is that you're wearing? A headscarf? Grandpops .. I .. I .. don't understand!

  43. Re:My Experience With Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I hope you've got a good pair of pliers at home. I'd be too embarrased to go to the doctor to have that hook taken out if I were you...

  44. Re:Shoe's on the Other foot now! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    That's not mayonnaise!

  45. Re:what the fuck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Although the parent post is distasteful in its tone, it is certainly interesting.

  46. Re:My Experience With Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I've said it before and I'll say it again: the difference between the post of a troll and the post of a blithering idiot is invisible to the audience. Please don't imagine that anyone thinks you're clever.

  47. Re:My Experience With Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Just because you've got Linux snot up your nose is no reason to be jealous that I'm speaking the truth. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to attend to some kernel level VB programming.

    dr_foo()

  48. Re:And yet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Forgetting about the credits???

    THEY RIPPED THEM OUT!

    geez.

  49. BRING BACK THE QUICKIES! by billnapier · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Hey Taco - Where are the Quickies? I haven't seen ANY in quite sometime (and I could usually find a couple things in there to lighten my day)

    1. Re:BRING BACK THE QUICKIES! by mrbill · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      I much prefer the Quickies to "Slashback".

  50. Re:Not the first time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Andre Hedrick isn't in charge of ATA-RAID. Shit, i doubt 1% of the peopel here know who submits those kernel patches, and that he is a very good man and has don emuch for the linux community. SHeesh.

  51. Re:News Flash! Crack addled moderators strike agai by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    When it repeats a sentiment in the actual body of the article? You forget, the very first post is not the first thing people read (except possibly you.)

    (I didn't moderate this down - but I do agree with the moderation as "redundant")

    BTW, bite my shiny metal ass.

  52. Mod DVega up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    The only way I've heard that MS uses the BSD TCP stack is from reading slashdot and a few other linux sites. I have never seen the actual Windows installation cite any copyright attributions or based on type of information from the end user programs/OS themselves.

    The closest thing I have seen is a microprint copyright notice on an old Visual C++ (forgive me) box and VB boxes saying portions C some guy. There was no such notice on any of the OEM windows95/98/nt40/2000 license packaging.

  53. Re:Yeah but BSD stole its TCP/IP stack! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Boy are you a sucker. You just got trolled big time.

  54. Re:My Experience With Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    hahaha. VB kernel level programming ?

  55. Re:wow, this is a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I wish I understood how the hell this comment got moderated up at all, much less as "insightful".

    It's basically a fucking "me too" post a la USENET, 1994 -- "me, too" because this IS a Linux advocacy site.

    Is it on-topic? Does it add to the discussion? Hardly.

    My bet is this 8th grade karma-whore (who's his pimp?) either has a bunch of accounts and modded himself up, or has a buddy with mod points today.

    woof.

  56. Re:wow, this is a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Um, excuse me, but what are 'props'?

  57. Re:heh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Dude it's a couple structs you retard. woo mad props!

  58. Re:wow, this is a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    This claims to be an Open Source advocacy site. That doesn't make it one. Slashdot is clearly a Linux advocacy site. A hostile one at that.

  59. Re:News Flash! Crack addled moderators strike agai by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Holy Zombie Jesus! (since we're breaking out the Futurama quotes)

  60. Re:The truth comes out like a gay Army private! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    OMG, you kick ass! ROFL

  61. Re:Are you sure it is a RedHat Employee by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    It's that fat, dumb guy who couldn't figure out dhcpcd. "i'm a kernel hacker!! wait, how do i get an ip?!" andreas or something? Could have sworn he was employed by suse the last time I saw him.

  62. Re:And yet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    like this is confirming once again everybody
    knew ... redhat sucks...

  63. Re:w00t! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    That's how spiralx does his '-'s... not the AC Avenger.

    Fucking retard.

    - The AC Avenger

  64. Re:wow, this is a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    give props where props is due

    The proper question would be "What is Props?"

    But only because the original poster is a fucking moron.

    - The AC Avenger

  65. Re:Skylarov by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    You're certainly not implying that just because the FBI doesn't arrest citizens of other countries in their own countries that the U.S. would never do such a thing... right?

  66. Re:And yet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    what kind of fup person are you bero..? are you justifing their actions....? They stole code...clear and simple. They should remove the code that was taken from BSD and rework it. Simple as that.....Guess you are trolling for answers

  67. Re:And yet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    No, what person B did is worse. Person B didn't really even need the money and just took it to get a round number, which is nobel. Person A on the other hand, actually used to money to *live* on. You can't go any lower.

  68. Re:And yet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I didn't mean to say BSD. OK, I suck. Well spotted.

  69. Re:wow, this is a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    This is +3 insightful? Fucking hell.

  70. Re:And yet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Then stop reading Slashdot!!!!

    It is based on OSS and is runned by people that love OSS.

  71. Where's the *BSD is dying troll now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Hello?
    Anyone?
    Beuller?

  72. Re:My Experience With Linux by Zeio · · Score: 2, Offtopic
    I work as a consultant for several fortune 500 companies,

    No, you don't.

    and I think I can shed a little light on the climate of the open source community at the moment.

    No, you can't.

    I believe that part of the reason that open source based startups are failing left and right is not an issue of marketing as it's commonly believed but more of an issue of the underlying technology.

    Broad statement. Incorrect. IBM and HP back/develop Linux, Dell sells Linux servers, etc, etc. The Gartner Group just recommended against using IIS. Cobalt and RedHat hardly failed as "Linux startups." Most linux code is portable in one way or another if its correctly written. Open Source has proven and will continue to prove that software should cost nothing. (Given that Mickeysoft doesn't accept liability, its essentially worthless.

    I know that that's a strong statement to make,

    No, its idiotic.

    but I have evidence to back it up!

    No, you don't.

    At one of the major corps(5000+ employees) that I consult for, we wanted to integrate Linux into our server pool. The allure of not having to pay any restrictive licensing fees was too great to ignore. I recommended [SIC]the installation of several boxes running the new 2.4.9 kernel, and my hopes were high that it would perform up to snuff with the Windows 2k boxes which were(and still are!) doing an AMAZING job at their respective tasks of serving HTTP requests, DNS, and file serving.

    So you went your own way and installed your own kernel, not using the default kernel or default kernel sources from a particular distribution. You failed to mention the distribution. High performance DNS is best outsourced for large companies try www.ultradns.com. You did no qualifying as 2.4.9 is fresh out of the ftp. The Gartner group recommended against the use of IIS, which owns a mere 25% of that market. 60% is apache. http://www.netcraft.com/survey/. Fileserving is trivial, and Linux offers a myriad of FS choices, XFS (SGI), JFS(IBM), Reiser, ext2, ext3, for various needs. From true logging/journaling to simple filesystems. Most of the time, Samba drastically outperforms NT/2000 boxes with the SMB protocol.

    I consider myself to be very technically inclined having programmed in VB for the last 8 years doing kernel level programming.

    You aren't. Delusion.

    I don't believe in C programming because contrary to popular belief, VB can go just as low level as C and the newest VB compiler generates code that's every bit as fast.

    Troll. C doesn't believe in making it easy for morons, sorry you were left out of the loop.

    I took it upon myself to configure the system from scratch and even used an optimised [SIC] version of gcc 3.1 to increase the execution speed of the binaries. I integrated the 3 machines I had configured into the server pool, and I'd have to say the results were less than impressive...

    GCC 3.1 isn't out yet. 3.01 is. The kernel documentation tell you to use EGCS 1.1.2 / GCC 2.91.66, but you can't read. I've had not problems with Linux 2.4.3 - 1.4.10 with gcc 3.00 or 3.01, nor with Mozilla 0.93/0.94, nor with any other things I have compiled with GCC on Linux. The processes will run without leaking for at least on the order of months. I had shells on Linux kernels that will run on the order of years. You are apparently I'll equipped to manage an enterprise Unix solution.

    We all know that linux isn't even close to being ready for the desktop, but I had heard that it was supposed to perform decently as a "server" based operating system. The 3 machines all went into swap immediately, and it was obvious that they weren't going to be able to handle the load in this "enterprise" environment. After running for less than 24 hours, 2 of them had experienced kernel panics caused by Bind and Apache crashing! Granted, Apache is a volunteer based project written by weekend hackers in their spare time while Microsft's [SIC] IIS has an actual professional full fledged development team devoted to it. Not to mention the fact that the Linux kernel itself lacks any support for any type of journaled filesystem, memory protection, SMP support, etc, but I thought that since Linux is based on such "old" technology that it would run with some level of stability. After several days of this type of behaviour [SIC] , we decided to reinstall windows 2k on the boxes to make sure it wasn't a hardware problem that was causing things to go wrong. The machines instantly shaped up and were seamlessly reintegrated into the server pool with just one Win2K machine doing more work than all 3 of the Linux boxes.

    Ximian, KDE 2.X are pretty hard to beat. Too much functionality for the basal minded. I've seen a 32MB piece of crap Cobalt box with Linux 2.2.16X survive quite a large beating. You used the wrong compiler to build the 2.4.9 kernel anyway. You probably didn't link /usr/include to the linux source tree. There is ReiserFS in the kernel, there are several distributions including journalled filesystems in them, XFS is offered with RedHat 7.1 via SGI. JFS is able to be put in. Reiser is already there. SMP support has been there since 2.2. You are wrong. The memory is far more protected than it is in Windows anything. I have never seen apache crash, nor BIND for that matter. Funny, your amateur ass stages servers for Fortune 500 companies on production boxes and then has to re-install Windows? Never was there a day where a Unix server could not do more with less hardware than Windows. Ever. Even Apple chimed into that idea.

    Needless to say, I won't be recommending [SIC] Linux/FSF to anymore of my clients. I'm dissappointed [SIC]that they won't be able to leverege [SIC]the free cost of Linux to their advantage, but in this case I suppose the old adage stands true that, "you get what you pay for." I would have also liked to have access to the source code of the applications that we're running on our mission critical systems; however, from the looks of it, the Microsoft "shared source" program seems to offer all of the same freedoms as the GPL.

    Needless to say you cant spell. You don recommend anything to anyone, your delusions of grandeur are most amusing. If you want to pay for support, you can. RH support is quite good, actually. Given that you recompiled the kernel on a system with the wrong compiler and then whine about it, you complain about Linux? Shared source is not completely open, retard, its chunks of code. And for the complete source you have to shell out big cash. Most appliances run non-Microsoft Code.

    As things stand now, I can understand using Linux in academia to compile simple "Hello World" style programs and learn C programming, but I'm afraid that for anything more than a hobby OS, Windows 98/NT/2K are your only choices.

    Linux is in academia because it is meritorious. Lotus Notes, Oracle, SAP are all ported to Linux, hardly "Hello World". It's a hobby to you, you clearly have to spend more time with it because you sir, are a complete and utter moron. Nick try on a troll.

    --
    Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
  73. Re:wow, this is a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Um, excuse me, but what is Props?

  74. Re:wow, this is a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    it's worse than it appears.

    I worked for RHAT a while ago. The culture there sucks. Upper management make the PHBs in dilbert look "with it". Customer Support are generally a bunch of mouth breathers that need to alias dir='ls'. And developers are "encouraged" to produce endless amounts of code while using a 486 or Pentium Pro.

    What's amazing isn't the theft, but that this was the first report of thievery.

  75. Re:wow, this is a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Short for 'proper respect'. Often accompanied by 'mad' meaning 'a lot' or 'excessive', as in 'mad props to AC'.

  76. Re:wow, this is a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    ANd someone who gets all worked up over a grammar mistake isn't much better :-)

  77. Re:FreeBSD dead? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Give me a break. There is more GPL code running on BSD then a cat has kittens. I mean feel sorry for the guy. But be honest here. Gimp, Gnome, KDE, etc.

    All this GPL code spiffing up Unix, BSD and yes even Windows desktops worldwide. You can say all you want but like I said before if it wasn't for the GNU movement BSD would be just another Unix.