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GPL Code Found In OpenBSD Wireless Driver
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.
I made the following comments at the OpenBSD Journal, but I think they are valid and should be heard amongst the Linux zealotry.
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.
still sucking them dicks?
With all due respect Bruce, I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. To start with, lets get it straight. The GPL is a license that covers distribution. Now I don't personally know what kind of development you've been involved in but commiting to cvs is not and has never been distribution. It's called revision control. On top of that it was a few minor functions and variable names used as placeholders. The Linux code was never going to be distributed under a BSD license. To put it bluntly, the BSD folks don't want or need viral code polluting their systems. The mistake here was that the BSD developer should have considered the fact that technically, yes, someone with a bone to pick could see the CVS tree as distribution channel. He should have left the necessary attribution on the code for the time being.
Even at that, if the Linux developer had an issue, he should have sent a private email and requested an explanation of what exactly was going on. What he did was make a total ass of himself, and draw out every GPL zealot for 900 miles to attack a BSD developer for doing something that is quite frankly normal and happens daily.
And everyone has to take a shot at Theo right? Well let's see. Did Theo go a bit overboard? Yep. Doesn't he always? Yep. Was he totally justified? You're damn straight he was.
Ubuntu: If at first you don't succeed, blindly slap a sudo in front of it
The "copy left" zealots are now attacking every Open Source license other than theirs.
Not too many years ago xBSD code was "reaped" and GPL'ed, albeit perfectly legally. Just as Microsoft and Apple have done. The code there to help friend or foe.
I hope it is true a double license was offered to OpenBSD - the right thing to do. I understand why major GPL projects like gcc and gdb should remain that, as well the Linux kernel. But this case is a few lines in a driver...
Sounds like the SCO suit against IBM.
i thought open source was all about smoking dicks. fucking faggots.
Do you shower? Maybe he's a hypochondriac. If you look like Stallman, I can see why he'd ignore your offered hand.
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.
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??
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
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.