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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.
Oh come off it, GPL guys.
Broadcom taking advantage of the bcm43xx code? I don't think so.
bcm43xx team Reverse Engineered the spec. Broadcom, on the other hand designed the damn thing. So, they have paid software engineers, and those guys can probably talk to the hardware engineers, etc.
How any code from a reverse engineered spec that blatantly just guesses at a lot of things is better than something written with the docs is far beyond me.
Michael Busch's whole argument that they GPL'ed the damn thing because they didn't want Broadcom to take advantage of their work is BS. They have different motives here. Even if they licensed their bcm43xx work as BSD, Broadcom would not even look at it for inclusion. So I don't know what the bcm43xx developers have their panties up in a wad about. They just wanted to make a fuss.
I don't know what your parents taught you, but for me sharing isn't "I have some cookies and I'd be glad to give you some, but only if you promise to share with others." No, it's "I have some cookies, here have some."
If you want to share, you'll do what the developer of SQLite does and place your work in the public domain. BSD is one step away from that, and GPL is not even close. It doesn't benefit anyone when you start adding artificial restrictions on your work. Create it, be proud of it, and let others use it as they wish. That's my philosophy.
Even if it's not nice to say, it's absolutely true. Reading the whole thread through, I have no doubt as to the good faith of the original BCM driver developers in their original e-mail, and then Theo just tears into them on some sort of crusade, and refuses to respond politely even when others attempt to be polite with him.
I know I'll be dropping OpenBSD from my the list of OSes I'm willing to maintain, because I don't want to deal with an organization that has a person like this as its head.
-- sudo.ca
Is written specifically and deliberately to block inclusion in GPL works, why should the GPL community make any concessions for the BSD community?
The "copy left" zealots are now attacking every Open Source license other than theirs.
They've been doing that for years now...taking their cue from the demoniac who leads them. The rationale is that an alternate form of control needs to be established in order to act as a counter to corporate fascism. I'm still trying to understand how merely developing another brand of repressive behaviour is supposed to be a good thing.
In my own mind the main reason why corporate misbehaviour is harmful is because it provides exactly the sort of material that Stallman and his apologists need as justification to engage in their own tyranny. It might not be mutual, but the FSF is in a dependent relationship with Microsoft...because without the fear of what the bogeyman Steve Ballmer might do next, people might start seeing the GPL for what it really is, comparitively speaking. Any appeal that the FSF currently have would evaporate.
"Sorry, but when someone's called on you to explain seemingly-illegally-copied code, telling them to "go fuck themselves" is not a bloody option. Try that in the real world sometime, and see how fast an indictment for copyright infringement and the corresponding civil suit comes flying in."
I guess English is not your mother tongue. I damn well stated what I would have told the Linux developer in this situation. Personally I think he needed to put up or shut the fuck up. One, the use was under 5% and not even functional code so I'm going to assume that would be fairly easy to write off as fair use. Two, it was never distributed. If you're going to harass someone and claim copyright infringement you better be willing and able to prove it was distributed. Three, Marcus seems to have a damn good case for slander (which is all documented in the list archive) if he were so inclined to go that route.
It might be a good idea for you GPL fanboys to take a second, hop off the the RMS train, and use some fucking common sense for just a bit.
Ubuntu: If at first you don't succeed, blindly slap a sudo in front of it