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GPL Code Found In OpenBSD Wireless Driver

Posted by kdawson on from the cross-licensing dept.

NormalVisual writes "The mailing lists were buzzing recently when Michael Buesch, one of the maintainers for the GPL'd bc43xx Broadcom wireless chip driver project, called the OpenBSD folks to task for apparently including code without permission from his project in the OpenBSD bcw project, which aims to provide functionality with Broadcom wireless chips under that OS. It seems that the problem has been resolved for now with the BSD driver author totally giving up on the project and Theo De Raadt taking the position that Buesch's posts on the subject were 'inhuman.'" More commentary from the BSD community is over at undeadly.org.

6 of 671 comments (clear)

  1. Summary of the Facts by fuzzyping1 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I made the following comments at the OpenBSD Journal, but I think they are valid and should be heard amongst the Linux zealotry.

    • 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 Buesch 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 bcw(4) and benefit the non-GPL user communities.

    Even Jeff Garzik, one of the bcm43xx developers, admitted that Michael's actions were wrong. It's unfortunate that Michael Beusch is more concerned about defending his actions than correcting the injustice.

    1. Re:Summary of the Facts by gwk · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      >They _are_. Actually, these seem to be the _only_ facts that are relevant to the discussion in the first place.

      It hasn't been relevant for more than two days now
      http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/sys/dev/ pci/Attic/if_bcw_pci.c

      >It's interresting that people seem to think _I_ have to apologize, as the OpenBSD developers

      You don't owe an apology to the OpenBSD developers you owe an apology to *ONE* OpenBSD developer Marcus Glocker. You called him a thief in public smeared his name without doing him the courtesy of contacting him about the problem. I hope if you ever make a mistake in public the aggrieved party is a lot more understanding.

  2. Re:You have got to be kidding by gwk · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Bullshit, you would not have, your project is terrified of lawyers thats was the whole reason for the Chinese wall. But you decided to lynch another open source developer in public because you could get away with it.

  3. Re:Summary: Theo went over the top by that+this+is+not+und · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    and his access to the source code repository was revoked

    Clarification: His 'write' access to CVS was revoked.

    Anybody has access to the source. Bill Gates can hook up a box to the 'net and use anonymous CVS to check out the entire source tree.

    Where's the anonymous CVS to check out the source tree on any prominent Linux project? Not even the kernel??

  4. Re:Good. by Dun+Malg · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I really hope the GPL gets tried in court because of this and subsequently fails. Miserably. Man, you sure are stupid. The GPL is a license. How can it "fail"? You either accept the terms and distribute the source code... or you don't, and have to write all your own code. What's so fucking hard about that? Morons like you who think that "free as in beer" should automatically mean it's Public Domain just don't get it. But then again, you're all fucktards, so why should that be surprising?
    --
    If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
  5. Re:mod parent up by bulliver · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Call us nutjobs if you like, but I fully agree with the GP post. I don't want to use, or be part of the community of an operating system whose lead freakin' developer is such an overreactive, manipulative, insulting asshat. This is the one good thing about proprietary software. A social moron like Theo would be fired in a second for his actions.

    --
    Support the mob or mysteriously disappear.