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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.
The whole thing lasted two days, much less than the blog and news coverage. Someone will come along and write this driver for BSD, and the BSD developer will have some well-deserved cooling-off time.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.wireles s.general/1558
"Wow, that's a hell of a long cc list for a request for a fair
resolution. the last 3 lines are mellow, but the body before that was
not very nice."
As if misappropriating source code is "nice"...
"We always try to make our stuff as clean as possible too."
Obviously, not "always".
The copying - if it was extensive as claimed - was hardly inadvertent. So Buesch has a complete right to be pissed about his code being stolen.
And the BSD folks are whining about him being pissed.
Meh.
One should never expect him to see the other side of an issue.
And by the way, first post :-) . OK, I'm a subscriber, I guess that's cheating.
Here is the Technocrat.net discussion of the same issue.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
His team were caught red-handed, and had the gall to blame the people who got ripped. He doesn't even seem to get copyright, saying there was no infringement because the driver wasn't yet ready for general use is beyond moronic.
I thought that open source was about sharing code.
Global warming is a cube.
Fast on the heels of Ballmer's tantrums and chair throwing, the BSD community was today wracked again by the borderline personality disorders and rageaholics that permeate the open source movement. Theo De Raadt, founder of the Open BSD Brigade, in an apparent fit of anger, threw his fist through a wall as he was cussing out an acolyte of Chairman Richard Stallman, leader of the competing marxist organization, the Free Stalin Foundation.
Hans Reiser, an open source maven who murdered his wife in cold blood, commented from prison that open source programmers had no abnormal personality problems, and were all "very smart people, very intelligent." Eric Raymon, fresh from a trip to the Paul Revere Institute Convention and Bondage Festival in Las Vegas, echoed these comments: "What the world doesn't understand, is that we are geniuses. There is nothing wrong with using strong language to intimidate idiotarians and freedom hating anti-gun liberazis".
Steve Jobs, emerging from a meditation chamber in his northern california home, opined that "he would fire half his open source staff" that night, as they had failed to properly implement a bitwise portrait of the mona lisa on the back of the motherboard for the new Apple Yojimbo motherboard family, slated to debut this fall.
The BeOS developers, currently washing dishes at a Sacramento Olive Garden, had the following comments: "Yeah, we are kinda bummed that we lost all that money. But frankly, I'm kind of glad to be done with those freaks. Apple, Microsoft, Lunix, what a bunch of creeps and sociopaths."
Echoed his boss "Johnny called in sick so I need you to work late tonight, is that OK?"
--
(parts of this story were contributed by James Gandalfini)
Deanna (I think it was Deanna anyway, based on the contributed by) overreacted to the email. The only thing unreasonable about the email that I saw was the wide distribution. The initial email from Michael Buesch, IMHO, should have gone to the comitter and the OpenBSD core team...
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Starting with a source code A and morphing it into B over time pretty much makes B a derivative work of A. Buesch has a right to be pissed - your defense is that the BSD folks were deriving their driver from GPL code.
Wriggle out of that, asshat.
And if the code wasn't released, how'd Buesch get it?
You called me a moron? Calling you brainless would be an insult to an anencephalic baboon.
...is how you can scroll down past the cascade of de Raadt nonsense and find an actual reasonable response from the bcw maintainer himself!
Unfortunately, with so much noise coming from de Raadt, the only thing most people are going to see are his ridiculous responses.
I'm sure someone else has drawn this line before, but he reminds me of the OpenBSD mascot. Like a blowfish, he fills up with (hot) air when threatened and is very defensive.
If you read through the email conversation, you'll see a VERY diplomatic initial message from Michael, a straw-man attack from Theo ("Do you feel that Marcus should give up his efforts?"), a VERY reasonable response ("No, he should _not_ give up. The opposite is true. He should start to contact us to get relicensing permission from us to speed up bcw development and stay legal") and then profanity and rage from Theo.
The slashdot post, the weblog entry, and Theo's comments are all ad hominem, and baseless ad hominem at that- the core issue here is that GPL code was taken in violation of its license. The owner of the code contacted and admittedly large number of people, publicly, about it. It is hardly out of line given Theo's well-known grandstanding full of rhetoric (hardware drivers for OpenBSD come to mind.)
Michael pointed out the violation and asked the developer/OpenBSD people to contact him to work out relicensing the code. Instead, Theo attacked him relentlessly and repeatedly. After the first 6 posts between Theo and Michael, I felt sick and stopped reading.
Please help metamoderate.
I think the crux here is grabbing GPL code untouched and using it *unannounced*in a BSD licence that allows anybody to distribute (i.e. just use it in binary releases).
I have read all the threads on the OBSD lists.
Without question, the Linux developer did not need to cc the whole word when first making his inquiry -- he should have contacted them in private. I would also suspect that the BSD developer was just using the Linux code as a drop-in replacement for the time being until he rewrote it with a BSD license. I do not believe the BSD developer was trying to steal anything or take credit for something he did not develop. He made a mistake, for sure, but I do not believe there was any ill will on his part.
However, the biggest story in all of this is just how freaking childish Theo is. I cannot for the life of me figure this guy out. He kills his own cause and make OBSD look like a playground for schoolyard bullies. Imagine how much better he and OBSD would have looked if they had responded to the initial mailing list post with something like: "Hey, we would have appreciated it if you had contacted us privately. In any event, we are quite confident there was no intent to take GPL code in violation of the license. However, we will discuss this, decide the appropriate remedy, and respond to you privately. Thank you for bringing this to our attention."
Matter solved, no drama. But Theo has to open his big fat mouth. Theo: it's called taking the high road, even if you didn't start it. Try it sometime.
Besides, Theo himself cross-posts to other lists all the time to incite flame wars. Just look at last month's FreeBSD-advocacy list -- he cross posted during a thread about the use of his dear Puffy on an anti-blob poster. Pot, meet kettle.
The crux of Theo's complaint seems to be that they "went public" by emailing too many people. When some of the people in on the email pointed out that they were the ones that actually did the hard work of reverse-engineering, Theo said:
Wow. Just, wow. I often agree with Theo even when he's being a knob because he's usually got a point. But in this case, he's been embarrassed, and he is using whatever he can think of as an incredibly flimsy excuse to attack the people whom the OpenBSD developer plagiarised. What a childish, unproductive attitude. Pulling the code and giving up on the driver instead of taking them up on their offer to relicense the code is cutting off your nose to spite your face, and worse for your users. Just take your ball and go home, Theo.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
undeadly == OpenBSD community
- Hubert
OpenBSD ?= free
GPL ?= free
So who the hell cares and why is this a problem?
Copying code without permission is the worst possible offense in open source land. His righteous indignation is absolutely justified. The appropriate response is "Our deepest and most sincere apologies. The code has been removed. Thank you for deciding not to seek any further retribution."
Arguing over not being nice about calling out this offense is cowardly and sociopathic. e.g. playing politics.
I've been using ndiswrapper with my BCM4306 802.11b/g device since before bcm43xx was useable on linux. Getting the bcm43xx driver to work involves firmware cutting and some other low level tricks I'd rather not do. I've never used a BSD and would never touch Theo's distro with a 99ft pole but I recommend using ndiswrapper for users who would like to use BSD and have a BCM wireless device.
I guess the whole point of this (without RTFA or even the posts, in fact just the /. comments) is that developers are still only human?
FLR
GPL does not allow someone to pick up the code and turn it into a closed source product.
BSD does. BSD code can be included into a GPL project, but the reverse is not true.
So the GPL product works hard to create a Broadcomm driver. The code gets included into a BSD driver. Broadcomm picks up the BSD driver and includes it into their closed source product. Broadcomm or some other company benefits from the GPL code and does not honor the orignal license.
Post anonymously - For when your opinion embarrasses even you!
The reason this was brought up in public is because it's public code. The OSS development model means that everything is public. If Theo doesn't want public discussions about public code, he should not be involved in development which involves everything happening in public.
Theo's excuse that "oh, it should have been done privately" is a smokescreen to try to distract people from the fact that someone on his team got caught violating copyright. It embarrassed him, and he got pissy about it.
Say what?
Where is that determined?
Wah... What the hell? The author of some code contacts the OpenBSD to communicate that copyright was infringed upon. The OpenBSD guys explode in a series of "zealot" name calling. I guess I can see some sense in privately contacting the OpenBSD dev. But on the other hand, it's in the OpenBSD development tree. Probably it's a good idea to tell people that it shouldn't be there.
Reading the initial email, I can't find any hint of malice. Just expressing the facts and offering to provide a license for the code. If this mailing list blows up because of something so unbelievably trivial, it doesn't seem like a fun place to hang out in. It's just weird.
But something else bothers me about the response too. It seems like the people there are *upset* that the original person informed them of the copyright infringement. I mean, nobody denied it. Everyone seems to agree there was an infringement. It just seems that some of the OpenBSD people think that the Linux people are assholes for choosing to license their code under the GPL... And apparently it's even worse to ask people not to infringe on that license.
That's just bizarre... It kind of makes you wonder who the zealots are... Personally, I'm kind of neutral on the subject. I like the GPL in some instances, I like other licenses in other instances. But, I just can't quite wrap my head around BSD guys (of all people) taking such a strange stance...
Everyone else thinks he's an asshole. I'M KIDDING! lol.
It turned a spectacle only after Theo responded the way he did. The correct response would have been "Oops, you are right, there seems to be a problem. We'll sort it out". With this response there wouldn't have been any spectacle and everybody would have been fine afterwards. Michael could have made first contact by email but equally well what he did was within reason. If Michael would have started be creating an thread on /.
that would have been out of line, but not this.
After all Marcus did copy code into his own project
stripping out the original copyright notice and distributed the result in violation of the copyright
Is this not the real beef in here?
>>> Nobody disputes that GPL code was committed to OpenBSD CVS.
Theo tried to dispute this many times by trying to ridicule Michaels point
by making strawmen about whitespaces and stuff.
It is just that Theo was not succesful when he tried to dispute this.
If my motive is to help free software, rather than give away my code, I can do so more effectively by putting the code under the GPL than BSD or Public Domain. This doesn't need rancour; just the observation that some of the free software that is out there is only there because of conditions of licence.
On top of that, there is an efficiency issue; encouraging speciation between free and proprietry software aids the market in selecting the more efficient mode of production, without being influenced by cross-subsidy (free software that is then used to help proprietry software).
Wikileaks, no DNS
I think it's your decision to make how you reply to the situation. I respect your decision to "go public" with the information, and I do not defend the "backlash" that you're getting from doing so.
However, I think you didn't play your cards in the right order. Because you've decided to play your ace out front, you're getting clobbered in the PR department.
It's like the people who find vulnerabilities in proprietary software. The respectable thing for them to do is disclose the problem to the software company, privately first. If the company decides not to address the problem, then you go public. It's the "politically correct" (for lack of a better term) way to handle the situation.
Same thing here. You could have written the maintainer of the code directly and sought a resolution off the public record. If the maintainer didn't come to an appropriate agreement (as decided by you and the other copyright holders), then you would be forced to go public with the information (or alternatively seek legal action).
You're right, of course. The BSD folks made a mistake including your code. They should deal with the consequences of that mistake and make amends for it. However, you could have played it a bit cooler too and the whole issue wouldn't have gotten so out of hand.
The way you've handled it makes it look like you've got an ax to grind or some political statement to make.
Beware of geeks bearing formulas.
Put it this way, if someone took Theo's code and relicensed it under their own license that they happen to prefer, which was against what Theo believes in, do you really think Theo of all people would be the kind of person who'd keep quiet about it?
I managed to catch front-row seats to the whole battle myself. Buesch (the Linux bcm43xx developer) posted a formal but not in any way harsh question to the BSD developer on the public bcm43xx list and to the BSD list. In any language, when communicating in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people, using more formal dialects is almost always the rule. Some people find the higher dialects offensive, but almost everyone appreciates the attempts to not sound like one of the local street punks hanging out around the corner at the strip mall trolling for some action.
Apparently the OpenBSD people were put off by this, which is unfortunate. And apparently they were so focused on making it yet another OpenBSD vs The World incident that they completely lost sight of the goal of both projects, which is to create Free and Open drivers for other people to use, despite the hardware specifications not being available. It's an unfortunate situation, of course.
Hopefully after everyone has a chance to reflect on the situation, the OpenBSD developers will realize that even though many other situations are actually OpenBSD vs The World, this is not one of them, and the Linux bcm-43xx team was not only willing to work with them on relicensing code, they also published the results of an incredible reverse engineering effort for anyone, including the OpenBSD team, to use in order to achieve this goal.
Theo, first you get all pissy, then you post as an AC.
I seriously cannot believe this. Why should the discussion focus on shooting the messenger? A developer was caught infringing on copyrights pants down. The infringement is hard to do without intent. Would you deal with such a "rogue" developer privately, or send a mail to project mailinglists (perhaps a core or dev list) which likely would be public anyway? Maybe OpenBSD would mail people privately, but can you not understand that others decide otherwise? If your developer makes these kinds of mistakes, the issue WILL be public and you WILL have to make a statement sooner or later.
:)
Transparency on copyright issues is just as important as transparency on security. It serves as an example to all open source projects to be watchful about these issues. This is not only about OpenBSD. OpenBSD is a mature open source project and they have nothing to be insecure (huhuh) about. Sometimes OpenBSD may have exploits, sometimes it may have copyright issues. We live, we learn. Code-wise this is a small issue and it's a fixable issue, as the bc43xx developers said in their statement.
I find the approach of the bc43xx developers perfectly defendable. The first mail was clear, diplomatic, complete, and explicitly offers to work out a deal. That's more than you usually get when you infringe on someone's rights! Unfortunately, the only result of it was another episode of "the Theo Show". Even though the issue was broadcasted, the OpenBSD project still had a great immediate opportunity to contain the issue. Instead, the bc43xx developers doesn't receive much but irrational unconstructive replies, intentional misinterpretation, blaming people for OpenBSD's own developer's decisions, etcetera.
If going public with an issue is inhuman, how is turning the debate into a flamefest human? It was shameful to read. The Theo Show IS the public spectacle. Perhaps it is part of how he defines his personality. In fact, this rogue attitude seems to work for OpenBSD - OpenBSD regularly gets a lot of mainstream exposure from these kind of fights. Maybe it's what saving OpenBSD from becoming irrelevant. Well, good for them. They probably make a great OS (I use FreeBSD exclusively). It's just too bad that they haven't got a Broadcom driver.
( ^_^)/
The unfortunately consequence of your action may well be the next time you or another GPL developer make a mistake involving BSD/ISC licensed code, you will be publicly burned at the stake first with no good-faith attempt for you to correct privately what may well be an honest mistake. You know de Raadt's got a vengeful streak - he's still holding OpenSSH over everyone's heads, um des Gottes willen. I think the majority of the people agree with you, Michael, that Glocker should not have committed the GPL code to their CVS; the real sticking point is that you didn't offer the man an attempt to remedy the situation privately and in good faith.
"Nobody disputes that GPL code was committed to OpenBSD CVS."
That IS a relevant fact. It was committed to a PUBLIC CVS. So it should be brought in public. Others might have already used the conflicting code, so yes, this should be known.
Join the anonymous, help develop the network: http://www.i2p2.de
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
'Inhuman' hardly describes being open about copyright violation. Michael was polite in his initial message; the immediate responses were to flame him. It's hard to accidentally include someone else's driver code in yours; Theo still kept saying that it was clearly an accident.
As for leaving GPL stub code...it would have been difficult to fully audit the driver code to see how much needed to be rewritten. Probably some GPL code would have stayed in the driver through release.
But since Michael was able to discover his code in the bcw driver, it was being distributed. *That's* clearly illegal. If only a few people had CVS access and nobody was actively distributing the bcw driver, then Michael wouldn't have had a case, or even known about it. They didn't even take that step with a non-working driver. I have no sympathy for the bcw maintainers.
I personally would have started the conversation privately. However...
The way that Theo and others are trying to deflect from the original and serious issue displays an absolute lack of professionalism. Seriously, if all the driver developer gets is a public scolding then maybe he should think himself lucky.
I'll admit it, I've done that very thing (copy some code in order to bootstrap a project). But I put all sorts of comments around tainted code, and I make damned sure that every single line of tainted code is rewritten before that code, or a product based on it, is released into the wild.
Theo and Marcus both come across as graceless and petulant children. At least Marcus decided to be childish quietly. Theo's ongoing rants about "the inhumanity" of it all just get hysterical after a few posts. Yes, the original email probably should have been more private. But the response from Theo is completely and utterly over the top.
Regards,
Ross
So, an open discussion of issues with publicly-accessible open-source development is a bad thing?
Sorry, I think I missed that memo. I'll be sure to use the new cover sheet next time.
Not only in this, but in thread in general Michael Buesch shows remarkable restraint. He is the one with a legitimate grievance and he is being insulted ad infinitum.
This is not a matter of GPL vs. BSD. It is a simple matter of breach of copyright. Everything else is bullshit.
But this type of thing might be. This sort of tactic could be used by commercial interests to get around the GPL. All they'd need to do is set up a BSD project, borrow some GPL code hoping no one will notice and then pull the BSD code into their commercial endeavor. Nearly plausible deniability after that.
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.
I agree with you that doing in a public forum was harsh and that responding privately would have been more polite and possibly would have lead to a better resolution. But I don't agree with Theo's hyperbolic characterization of Micheal and the others as a bunch of GPL fanatics relishing at the opportunity to drag an OpenBSD developer through the mud and then try to make him come back begging like a dog (yes he used both those metaphors). Micheal and the others were probably a little angry, with good reason, their code had been copied without permission and without credit. How would you feel if you saw another open source developer was taking your work and passing it off as their own? My guess is responding in a public forum was their way to both get back some of that credit and perhaps give a little vindictive shaming. Not the purest of motives but not entirely out of line either.However Theo's first reaction was to turn the situation into an attack on Micheal. Note in the first email Theo sent his first suggestion of how the problem may be resolved was "Maybe he'll just delete the driver and quit even trying, because you chose to cc so many people, and malign him. Maybe he'll simply replace every single line that looks similar, and then he could rightly not even mention any of the efforts of people like you". So his first suggestion is that the developer quit, his second is that the developer remove any GPL code from the driver (denying the GPL authors credit is given as a prominent benefit here). No where in the email does he directly acknowledge the option that the bcm43xx developers did give, to relicense a bunch of that code under BSD. To me it sounds like Theo had no interest in coming to a constructive solution and instead was just trying to turn the situation around into an attack on Micheal and the others. Note that despite sending the email in a public forum their entire dialog was very polite, constrained, and actually trying to find a solution. The only other thing they could be faulted was stating their belief that the copying was deliberate and the developer knew he was violating the GPL, considering the developer was an experienced BSD contributor I'd say these beliefs are valid.
Note that by the time Marcus had gotten around to responding (no idea if he was hesitating or if he hadn't read his email yet) Theo had already turned the thread into a full flame war (with him doing all the flaming). Also Theo had already presented the idea, multiple times, that Marcus just quit and never acknowledged the idea of asking the original authors to re-license some of the code (which they repeatedly said they would do) as a valid solution. In my opinion Micheal Buesch bears very little responsibility for the developer quiting, Theo basically left him with no other option (besides contradicting him).
I stole this Sig
Of course it is. Of course, most people don't realise this, because the evil, inhuman Michael Busch used his time machine to travel back to 2005 and plant fake mailing list archives saying that the reason they chose the GPL over the BSD license was because they didn't want it taken proprietary especially by Broadcom, because of particular features of the open driver, when we all know it's just an evil, inhuman plot against Theo and OpenBSD. Thanks for alerting us to this deviousness, AC!
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:32(King James Version)
Careful there. GPL leaners (ie. developers who prefer the GPL) do that kind of thing all the time. Sometimes they completely rewrite the source material, sometimes they don't. Additionally they take code that they call "compatibly licensed" and appropriate it into their own projects. Then distribute the whole thing with a file called "LICENSE" that says "This is under the GPL." Without ever mentioning that parts of the code are definitely not GPL.
That being said, Theo is a putz. And a wanker. This is the guy who shoots an email to some company and then if the sales team or support division don't mobilize and carry his request and advocate for him with the legal or corporate division, starts with the smear campaigns against the company. If they suggest that he pay a license fee to them he starts with the smear campaigns.
Finally, I'm not entirely sure what he's complaining about here. Somebody got their feelings hurt? Somebody is embarrassed? Maybe somebody shouldn't have stripped licenses from code they didn't write and check it into a publicly accessible, recommended, and advertised CVS repository?
Actually, a number of times Theo characterised their complaint as being about copyrighted whitespace and variable names, even after being told to look at the code. Example:
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Going public was the only way to make sure any tainted code would be caught. And even then it's not certain.
Why are you even trying to defend the practice of surreptitiously using GPL code to derive a product destined to be released under a non-GPL license? That's deliberate copyright violation. Buesch has every right to be royally and publicly pissed.
And the BSD folks are damn lucky his first response wasn't to go to a lawyer.
So, no, it doesn't appear Buesch has any ax to grind at all. All he did was shout "Thief!" as someone was running away with stolen goods.
And now people are pissed that one of their friends was caught as the thief so they're playing victim to the best of their abilities.
Well, I'm glad he didn't use the usual corporate approach then, which would be to send a C&D using the DMCA to force BSDs hosting partner to take them down, accompanied with an offer to settle for a few grand under threats of a $150,000 lawsuit. That would probably send Theo into cardiac arrest.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Insulting windows users just ain't any fun to us seasoned opensource users is it. It is like trying your wits against a duckling, one that has been run over and chewed on by the rats. Far better to cross daggers with a person of your own calibre, even if in the case of you BSD lovers it is an undead calibre.
But very well, I shall engage you on the battlefield, as long as you promise to stay down wind of me.
BSD is the thief and the thief does NOT get to complain about how the victim responds. If you break into my house I am not obliged to send you a polite letter first to ask you to please return my stuff, I send for the police, I do that publicaly and if they wake up everyone in your street and haul you out in front of your neightbours in your Steve Jobs underwear while they go about reclaiming my possesions then all the better.
The BSD people involved really should have known better then to do this. Contrary to what some people think both BSD and GPL people strongly believe in copyrights (what differs from closed source supporters is just how much control the author has over the user and/or further authors). You may not like either the GPL or BSD BUT for either to work they must respect the other.
Buesch might have done this in private BUT it is his decision and his decision and alone how to handle this. The offenders do not get to dictate how the victim voices his complaint. Theo should shut the fuck up, apologize for his and his team actions and be damned glad no formal complaint is being launched in the courts.
Just how much code is there in BSD anyway that is not there legally? Were there is smoke, there is fire.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
What, it was all a viral GPL-pervert scheme to trick righteous BSD developers into copying their work?
By offering to negotiate including their code in the BSD project?
Mind the Gap
>They _are_. Actually, these seem to be the _only_ facts that are relevant to the discussion in the first place.
/ pci/Attic/if_bcw_pci.c
It hasn't been relevant for more than two days now
http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/sys/dev
>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.
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.
I'm going to venture a guess that you're either not a professional software engineer, or still fresh out of college and very low on real world experience, then. At the very least, you've seen the codebases at very few companies, or you've just been very, very lucky.
I've had to throw out code and start fresh because the original code I was given was code that had been written originally years ago by an outside contractor brought in to do it, then maintained for the next two years by the hardware engineers themselves, under the premise that they're engineers, they've got a C compiler and a SAMS book, what more qualifications did they need? I was brought in because they couldn't figure out how to add some new features they wanted. The reason wasn't because the new features were tricky, the reason was the code was so hacked up it was impossible to change anything without breaking everything else. Alas, this level of code is all too common at companies that see their primary product as hardware rather than software.
I've also seen horribly base code that needed to be replaced at companies that had paid software engineers maintaining it the whole time. Why do you think the fact that they were paid software engineers somehow magically makes their code any better? It was crap, and the only reason they were able to get away with it was because no one outside their department ever saw it. There's no easier way to hide bad coding than to work inside a corporation on proprietary software. It's the easiest place in the world for it to occur, and often the hardest place in the world to get incompetent engineers off a project.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
The bcm43xx driver doesn't even work!
Hm...I wonder what license Dijkstra released his algorithm under...
Consider that with software, when you share...the original is still there for everyone to use. The GPL is equally as greedy as closed-source because it forces restrictions on the user. It's just trying to drive closed-source out of business by locking everyone into open-source. Either your program is free, or you can't use GPL code.
It is a beautiful thing that humans are willing to give up their time and energy to make something that they let the world use for free. Corporations, unfortunately, are driven by the dollar.
If you are truly interested in the forward progress of computer science and the benefits to humanity, then you would choose for your creations a license which allows derivative works of any type, commercial or free. Your creation, then, can be used by anyone, forever, whether this anyone intends to write a free program, or is a code monkey developing for some corporation.
:(){
Disputes over licenses...shooting ourselves in the foot...just like the "grown-ups". Meh! Pitiful!
What?
My thoughts exactly. When I read that they intended to replace the code over time, my first thought was that the code would still be a derived work, and thus still be subject to the GPL, even if none of the original code remained.
The OpenBSD people WERE offered alternate licensing. The Linux folk were (rightly) miffed that their code was pinched without permission.
That is a HUGE difference. I am perfectly willing to give you ride somewhere. I am not going to give you my car.
It says it all that Microsoft LIKES bsd style opensource. Hell it is a public secret that windows for a long time contained BSD code in its network stack. MS doesn't have a problem at all with BSD style opensource since it can take all it wants and give nothing back. The GPL doesn't allow that. The GPL is about sharing.
I share with you, so you have to share with me. If I give you a ride it is sorta understood that you will give me a ride someday, or at least to someone else someday.
Both BSD and GPL have their nobelity. In think with BSD it is supposed to be, we want the world to use quality software and have it available and if that means others can take our work and never ever give anything of their own so be it. BSD is willing to do all the work.
Very noble, but most people don't work that way.
In this case, the broadcom GPL drivers have extra capabilities, if BSD had written them then broadcom would have been able to use that in their own drivers, without offcourse at anytime opening up any of their own stuff. BSD would have done their work for free. BSD don't mind, they see it as their cause, to improve software this way. Perhaps windows users the world over are thankfull to BSD for MS Windows wonderfull network code. Perhaps. If windows users ever knew about it.
The GPL works very different. What happens in GPL, stays in GPL. If you want to use GPL software you gotta GPL what you add to it. So broadcom can use the GPL drivers and their extra capabilities BUT only if they gpl the stuff they add themselves.
I will give you ride BUT only if you give me a ride tomorrow.
GPL is for older people, ones who know that in this world there are people who will NEVER buy their round, who never offer rides, who are always on holiday when it is someone elses turn to move.
Oh and opensource means nothing. Just because the source is open does NOT mean you can share it. After all a book is opensource but just you try to share the latest harry potter.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Michael: should have emailed OpenBSD folks privately, pointing out the similarity of the code and determining whether the similarity is a coincidence, a bad idea of using GPL code as a placeholder (as seems to be the actual event), or outright theft. If there's inadequate response to the inquiry, only then should Michael have sent email to hundreds and hundreds of people about it.
Theo: should have taken the whole matter off-line as quickly as possible.
everyone: let tempers cool. Wait a few minutes before firing off the next salvo.
The whole thing could have been resolved with a few emails, and everyone would probably have felt OK about any outcome. Instead, the outcome is (from the outsider's perspective) the worst possible, and no one is happy about it.
Be careful about who you call a thief. Defaulting to a conclusion of theft when there could be an innocent explanation ("fair use," anyone?) is a terribly pessimistic way to go through life. Default to a belief that there is a reasonable explanation for the circumstances, and investigate further.
Similar? Here's a comment from the BSD driver:
/* XXX bcm43xx_voluntary_preempt() ? */
So, since when has OpenBSD had something called voluntary_preempt just like Linux? If you were just reimplementing similar code, why copy a line that would never be useful?
It seems clear the devolper copied the code, and was reimplementing it in parts, which is questionable even after all the parts have been replaced. That is because it could be argued that the code is a derived work. As a mental exercise, imaging doing this with code lifted from a commercial vendor; How would they respond? Probably the first you'd hear of it would be a lawsuit.
In a perfect world you would have a valid point. This is the real world where established corporations feel no moral qualms about stealing and sealing away free software, which might possibly affect their profit margin, using any number of tactical legal avenues. While BSD may be more free GPL is a more practical implementation of free for the real world.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
This left me to think that when Theo commits social gaffes, it is not his fault and he can't help himself. We all have our lacks, issues, and strengths.
I'm sorry, but I cannot agree with you on this. The way Mr. de Raadt treats other human beings is simply abusive, and there is no external factor than can explain his behavior in any fashion that would justify coddling it. Unless you are seriously willing to argue that the man is not, in a legal sense, mentally competent, then it is most certainly a problem that lies at his feet, and we should take no pity on him for it. To do otherwise is to suggest that he isn't, frankly, sane.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Is there any history behind this? Could the decision to take the initial notice public have been based on past examples, possibly occurring between the team you worked on and the oBSD team, of similar situations?
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Theo telling somebody else to watch what they say and to whom they say it? Maybe when he learns to take his own advice he'll be less of a joke.
Game... blouses.
GPL: I buy everyone a round because the license of the bar says that everyone else will also buy a round when it is their turn.
BSD: I buy everyone a round because hell, I am just a nice guy and I want everyone to have a beer even if that means I will end up paying for all the beer being drunk.
Closed source company: Hell, I like you BSD, keep them coming.Eh, my round? I left my wallet at home, say BSD, how about a napeleon brandy mate?
BSD: Sure, we are all mates.
GPL: You are an idiot BSD. But hey, make mine a double.
Get it?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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.
Also, you say he "kill[ed] a truly free implementation of the driver in question," you are totally missing the issue. The entire point of this debate is that the bloody driver wasn't free at all! It was GPL'd code, which gives you the rights to use it within the terms of the GPL. Stripping the legitimate author(s) name(s) from the code and relicensing it under a looser (or, in the case of the GPL, tighter) license is one of the main things the GPL and other licenses are designed to prevent.
I find it regrettable that Michael decided to go so public with this (indeed, as others pointed out, it could probably have been solved privately) but it is absolutely his right, as the "sorry little fuck" who owns the copyright on the code, to protect it as he sees fit. I think the OpenBSD team should be remarkably relieved that Michael diplomatically approached the issue and offered to assist in relicensing the code instead of simply suing Marcus and the other perpetrators of this infringement.
So stop heaping abuse on the guy simply because he chose to protect his legal right to have his original product (the code) used only under the license he selected for it and to not have it used outside those boundaries by anyone else, whether by accident or design. Instead, give him credit for offering to assist in reaching a constructive solution to the issue.
-- Andrew Morritt
I wholeheartedly concur.
To further illustrate your point, people should look at the source code some of those companies are forced to release, either before going belly up or due to some other circumstances.
My favourite example is the supreme abomination which is the evily hacked up Zaurus kernel (as released by SHARP). The thing "compiles" with about 500+ warnings to begin with. And that is only an early outside indication of the rot within. Its like a vile smell on a corpse trying to warn the unwary away.
For spectacularly and obviously misguided closed source code take look at how Samsung concocted their printer/scanner drivers for Linux. Its frightening.
And of course, just like you, I did work with closed source corporate projects. That stuff can give one nightmares.
Pointing out problems in public first is inhuman? If that's what you call inhuman then I don't want to know what you consider human. I fail to see why you blame the "zealot wolves"' behavior on Michael. The zealots are at fault and are entirely responsible for their own behavior, not Michael.
OH
That was so smooth. Good show.
I agree with you.
And as to my subject. GAH! What a moronic non-argument.
Instead of saying "I don't like you method but yeah, you're right." he sits there and tries to verbally strip the humanity from Michael.
Why?
Because it's MUCH easier to hate someone and steal what is theirs when they're not human. They don't, then, have the same rights or privileges as as "us real humans".
Yet again, a major figure in the free software movement making a complete and utter jackass spectacle of himself in public.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
This is a problem of the FOSS community turning on itself. If there was a GPL violation, the proper thing to do is own up to it and seek a re-license, which is what the owner of the GPL'd code wanted.
I am still reading the whole Gmain thread, and am quite shocked by Theo's comments. I agree with another fellow who said that FOSS wireless driver development teams should work closely together to ensure the proprietary world doesn't overwhelm the effort. But, I digress . . .
The core issue is whether the BCW developer copied GPL'd code, which the holder of the GPL copyright asserts. Plenty of clean examples were given, and the ability to investigate the entire tree for both sets of code makes it a quick search issue. Much better than the SCO/M$ v. IBM suit. Theo's response to the allegation is immature at least:
1. Ad hominem attacks: calling Mike inhuman and attacking him for making the issue public.
2. Irrelevant: saying that the bcw code does not work so there's no copyright issue. Copyright speaks to content, not functionality.
3. It was an accident: Claiming the bcw "accidentally" copied GPL'd code. How can you accidentally copy entire blocks of code?
4. That the code copy was temporary scaffolding: which counters #3, above. You can't claim the code copy was an accident or unintentional then say the copy was intentional for a short period of time. Theo says the code was copied to get other parts of the bcw driver to work, then would be re-written. The problem here is twofold. First, the code was copied and checked into the repository under BSD licensing, which is a violation in-and-of-itself. Second, putting the code there pending re-write means the re-write would be a derivative of the original GPL'd code---which is still a copyright violation.
Above all, the entire line of discussion is not relevant. There's a claim of copyright violation. If the code is there, then it is a violation, whether or not it was "accidental." This extends beyond issues of header calls which are so ordinary as to not be copyrightable. (At least, under U.S. law, if there are only a few ways to convey an idea, then it cannot be copyrighted.) Whether the accusation was public is not relevant; was there a violation? The responsible action would be to investigate when the GPL'd author made the accusation.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
Below are two edits to the piece here.
The first. Let's pretend this was GPL code taken by Microsoft, not OpenBSD, for inclusion in Windows. To me, that looks like Mr Buesch is being decent.
Now let's switch to the opposite - Mr Buesch as a Windows developer, finding Microsoft code in OpenBSD Again, a response like that if it were from Microsoft to the OpenBSD team would be considered highly decent.
I think Michael Buesch did well
==
Careful there. GPL leaners (ie. developers who prefer the GPL) do that kind of thing all the time. Sometimes they completely rewrite the source material, sometimes they don't.
Additionally they take code that they call "compatibly licensed" and appropriate it into their own projects. Then distribute the whole thing with a file called "LICENSE" that says "This is under the GPL."
==
But that is not the same kind of thing at all.
I do not understand why you would choose a license that is characterized by allowing everyone to use your code as they want, and then somehow think it is wrong if someone use the code in a GPL project. It you do not want people to change the license of your code, you should use a copyleft licence.
As far as I can tell, it was your obligation to post publicly that the code was GPL licensed before someone else could have been damaged by making an assumption that the code was not GPL licensed.
If that project had a nice, empathic woman who has been a parent of teenagers to handle your notice, the reply would have been an apology, followed by amplification of your notice, and a calm talk about what to do. Instead, you got Theo :-)
It's as if you ran over a land-mine and people then tried to criticize you for running.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I think Theo's, um, verbal repertoire must have come as a bit of a surprise to you. As far as I can see your post was sternly worded, but not abusively so (and I think it always to be a bit classier if you meet abuse with a measured, unemotional response instead of replying in kind :-).
Now, why did you call this one publicly? Was it a simple mistake in the heat of the moment, to make sure whoever was coding would read it and maybe help with a solution, why?
There's no hidden agenda here, I'm simply curious. If I was in a place where I could grab the two of you by the collar and drag you into a pub where I could fill you both up with beer and get you to talk it out I'd do it, but that's sadly not the case..
Insert
How is that a sticking point? The _only_ sticking point is the copied code. (Why people keep calling this theft is beyond me; infringement != theft)
Furthermore, imagine a scenario where this wasn't taken public ASAP. Anyone that went to the code after the copied code was added but before it was corrected would be liable to think that the code in question was under a completely different license. In this scenario it is in the author's best interest to notify as many people as possible that his code has been hijacked. The more people that know, the better it is for the author, and for the people who would potentially have used the code. Sure, you'll be stepping on a few toes in making the issue public, but it has to be done in order to protect yourself and everyone else from misappropriating code. There is *no* other way to accomplish this as effectively, that I am aware of. Why take the man to task for protecting his assets, kindly and tactfully at that? I'm not sure that we're reading the same thing, because from my end, it looks like Michael was being kinder and more patient than I can reasonably expect from anybody that I've ever met. The only alternative would be to ask the developer to make a *public* statement about the entire thing, which would have the same effect. The only difference would be the name of the person delivering the message, which is _completely_ trivial.
Maybe you could argue that it might have saved the developer some face if he was the one delivering the message publicly. You know what would have saved him even more face? Not relicensing code that wasn't his in the first place.
I disagree with you. I do think that a private conversation would have been better first. To use your analogy, it would be like tapping someone on the shoulder just before they decide to walk out with something under their pocket and say "I think you forgot to pay for something". If they would continue walking out, shouting 'Thief' would be appropriate, but the word 'thief' is an assumption as long as the shop has not been left.
Having said that, for Theo to start that barrage of abuse instead of calmly saying "it would have been more polite if you'd contacted me privately first but we'll sort it out" shows a personality that is pretty deficient in restraint. That is, however, not atypical in especially technical spheres, but normally you have someone with a bit more self control between those teams and mass broadcast facilities.
Now you have tempers frayed over something that otherwise a good chat over a beer would have fixed..
Insert
...eminently sensible and realistic stuff...And me without mod points :-(
Listening from far away, it seems that asking about this on the mailing list is fair. Maybe some people wished it was done person to person, but that judgement cannot except in some insane person's head (like Mr. De Radt) equate to being inhuman, which we usually reserve for someone who does much worse things.
In fact Buesch was quite level-headed about it even when De Radt threw all kinds of crap at him and then other people on the mailing list jumped on board too. Considering that BSD is the key channel for the GPL work to find its way into manufacturer's machinery, I'd say the authors (who by the way deserve that title quite a lot more than the guy who went off in a huff) could stand to have been a little angrier in tone and still be within their rights.
It looks in fact like it was Theo de Radt's fault alone for blowing it up into a huge problem and he is solely responsible for the BSD guy to quit his attempt to import the GPL code.
Theo should have said the very first time, "OMG I'm sorry we'll pull the code, and I'll contact the developer and get right on it with you. Thanks for being understanding."
This is clear proof to the world not that anyone is inhuman. It does suggest that De Radt is unfit for whatever leadership position he has, and should resign, or at least get someone else to be in charge of similar issues in the future.
Perhaps someone could write some guidelines to BSD people concerning what is appropriate in terms of "paraphrasing" other code or making use of someone else's reverse engineering. It seems other people could fall into a similar problem and they better hope De Radt is not online that day.
From the BSD License:
That screams "requires attribution" to me. The line you are referring to, which was removed in 1999, is as follows:
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
"Doofus" is 5th declension masculine. Like virus. Singular: doofus; plural: doofus.
(This has been an attempted Latin joke. If this had been an actual joke, it would have been followed by laughter and muted applause. This concludes this attempted Latin joke.)
sigfault (core dumped)
95% of the conflicts between human beings - supposedly civilised ones - would not exist if not for the overly inflated ego of the participants. There is no issue here. Either the usage of the code was wrong or right according to strict licensing definitions. Since it appears everybody agreed to the fact it was wrong, the next step is clear. Why the fuss, and the emotions, and the name calling? Mistakes happen.. just fix them and move on.
Additionally they take code that they call "compatibly licensed" and appropriate it into their own projects. Then distribute the whole thing with a file called "LICENSE" that says "This is under the GPL." Without ever mentioning that parts of the code are definitely not GPL.
Asserting copyright ownership when you don't have it is criminal fraud. I doubt highly this happens on a regular basis.
They obviously knew Theo. If he's going to throw a hissy, you may as well get it in print early so he can't even *pretend* he's remotely rational.
For example, his claim that "we are the people who wrote OpenSSH" is false from its start. OpenSSH had its foundations in the original SSH implementation, released under a very open source license but taken private at roughly version 1.2.22. Now, that wasn't stolen. But Theo and his peers taking credit for someone else's foundation work is hardly new. Most of the current OpenSSH maintainers are very careful to take credit only for *their* work, and credit the ssh.com authors with their original work.
Theo isn't so careful. Moreover, the OpenBSD insistence on pursuing useless but technically exciting features (such as their "chroot" functionality, which isn't actually a chroot cage for anything that uses SSH) have actually hindered its deployment. And their default insistence on not being able to detect passphrase-less keys continues to make SSH use a surprisingly dangerous tool: since the local keys are kept almost by default unprotected, any idiot who can read your backup tapes or access your home directory by other means can and will steal your private SSH keys and use them for anything they want.
The vulnerabilities have been known about for years. Pursing that unstable and unreliable chroot that only operates for millisends when starting up OpenSSH was considered far more important than these practical issues.
It's time for Theo to resign from his leadership position and let someone with more of a clue give him orders on his technically proficient code.
Yah; in RTFA, I did read the entire content of Theo's first two posts in response to the thread, and immediately realized he was being needlessly reactionary ( equiv == "asshole". )
Good prgrammer maybe - but he discredits himself with outbursts like this.
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
If it's any consolation, my housemate with the Classics degree laughed, but he doesn't have any mod points (or an account).
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
As a matter of fact, I've just inherited a substantial fortune from a relative overseas. If you could front me a few grand to cover the foreign probate fees and wealth import taxes, I'll be in a position to send quite a bit of business your way.
Mind the Gap
Good.
Theo's continued ill behavior towards other development teams interfered with NetBSD work and BSD copyrights, because he's made it clear he can't be bothered to play nice or encourage his development partners to play nice.. It's now going to interfere with OpenBSD, which may cost us some technical features of OpenBSD but will encourage developers to stop playing with such a niche market and move over to the more commercially and developmentally effective world of Linux.
I mean, sheesh. have you ever tried to *install* OpenBSD?
I saw this mentioned elsewhere in the discussion, and I can see the validity of the point. You might note that at no point did I critize Buesch's language, as I think his solutions were reasoned and more than fair. I felt that out of professional courtesy, a private notice would be more appropriate, but you and others are saying the GPL more or less does not allow this in situations such as this. True?
It's a shame this software license forces one to use such potentially-humiliating behavior to ensure compliance. It's tantamount to being pulled over and given a warning by a police officer for failure to signal a lane change, and then going home to find out that your name has been posted on the 1700 news along with your vehicle and license number, to make sure everyone knows what you've done, though it was not "intentional" and you were not issued a citation.
It's a hostile way of dealing with inadvertent (innocent until proven guilty, even in the neofascist US) errors, it *forces* such situations to be resolved in a confrontational way, and in no way contributes to any sort of good-faith-effort between groups working on similar projects. Aside from the fact that it allows the developer to exercise control over how the final product, and any derived works from that product, are to be distributed I can see no benefit from such a software license. I would never relicense something I've written using BSD/ISC as GPL no matter what the circumstances, having seen the GPL "in action".
As far as I'm concerned, the only acceptable reaction from a developer, open source or otherwise, to an allegation of a GPL violation is "we'll look into it right away and let you know". And the only acceptable reaction to a documented GPL violation is "we're sorry, we are going to remove the offending code immediately, and we're putting mechanisms in place to make sure it doesn't happen again".
I don't think Theo was purposefully trying to divert attention. He admitted to the issue up front. I think it is going a bit too far to assign a deeper motive here. I'd bet Theo felt that his organization was being threatened via a very public accusation. He probably responded without thinking things through clearly, which most of us can be guilty of. As Bruce said, he over-reacted and lost his cool. That's it. You had an inexperienced committer here and a leader who got defensive.
Theo should have just removed the offending code and then responded with an apology. Following a succinct apology, he could have then asked that future notices of this sort be given a chance to be handled via a more private method.
Trouble is that programming is not a solitary occupation anymore; it's done in large groups, and much of it involves face-to-face communication, compromise, and group decision making.
But Mr.Theo (Did I mention that you are using SSH) Raad did not respond in a calm way.
Which sounds great until you realize the website is lying. Or at least misleading.
/ ssh/LICENCE?rev=1.19&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-ma rkup is the only description of openSSH's license that counts, and it's one long enough to confuse me whether it's GPL is allowable or not. That said, I can't find anything relevant on debian-legal about it, so the GP may be mistaken.
http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
It doesn't matter what license the stolen code was under. The issue is that the OpenBSD module author took code without complying with its license.
So, debates about the relative meaning of the BSD and GPL license are simply not relevant.
The FSF does it.
If they robbed GPL code, its they problem, not our. Damn, lets ban BSD forever.
Please tell me you're merely idly trolling and that you don't honestly think like this.
Well, we're obviously not going to agree on this here then. Which is unfortunate, but ok. You place fault on the GPL, which isn't really the case. Any code licensed under most Non-BSD compatible licenses would illicit the same action. I'm not to keen on the idea of knocking the BSD license, but if you're going to lay fault on a license, its the actions of the BSD that cause all this mess. That is, people could mistakenly believe that the given code is BSD'ed when it isn't. "Correcting" the problem by GPL'ing the project, or not GPL'ing the entire project and removing the offending code and maintaining the BSD license, after it's already been in a publicly available BSD'ed project is irrelevant. I see it as inappropriate behavior on part of the the person that willingly copied someone else's code without permission. Innocence of intent here is irrelevant, as the consequences of his actions would take effect regardless of his intentions. Though, I think we do agree on one thing, and that things might have gone smoother if he had notified him in private. But full effectiveness would be contingent upon an eventual public announcement. It's not hard to imagine why one would want to point out their own mistakes themselves publicly, instead of having someone else pointing a finger at them in public. That point doesn't fail me in the slightest. Still, You spoke of intent. While it is unfortunate that this may have been accidental (which I am failing at understanding how it could be), certain actions must take place in order to mitigate the damage, regardless of the intent. (I apologize that I am repeating myself (again), I am just trying to straighten my thoughts) I think the ball busting that Buesch has been taking for those actions is a bit of an overkill, given the situation that he was put in not of his own choice. People are justifying the ball busting by saying that Buesch overreacted in the first place, and I'm just trying to point out that he had few, if any, alternate courses of action. I'm pretty sure I've covered all the bases, and I'm even more sure that if I haven't someone will be kind enough to point it out.
Theo IS a zealot.
The original notification message was just fine. I would've done somewhat the same--it's not _my_ job to peer through another group or organization and find out who STOLE my code--that's the job of the group.
Theo proved, yet again, that he is an ass clown.
One of the many reasons I dropped using OpenBSD. There's only so much self righteousness I can take in a single thread per day.
-buf
Copyright infringement only occurs when someone other than the copyright holder attempts to distribute a copyrighted work without permission of the copyright holder. There's no problem if you 1) hold the copyright or 2) do not distribute the work or 3) distribute the work under the terms of the GPL or 4) make other arrangements with the copyright holder such that you can legally distribute the work.
Working on the code on your own and never distributing it to another person is fine. Checking in GPLd code to a public repository without fulfilling one of #1, #3, or #4 is infringement.
how to invest, a novice's guide
The GPL doesn't prohibit redistribution, copyright law prohibits redistribution. The GPL *allows* redistribution under certain conditions which in this case were not being observed.
Because that's what the driver developer intended - take the GPL driver, and modify it over time to hide it's origins.
The only way that refactoring becomes illegal is if the GPL becomes a patent license as well, which it probably will...it's logical. Got to close all possible doors.
I will never understand how people are so unbelievably, voluntarily stupid. The FSF and its' fanboys bully people and do and say repressive things on a continual basis, and yet somehow, they're supposedly the ones in the right, every time. I can only hope that eventually, Linux users start waking up.
It's a very dark ride.
Hahahaha... that's one of the funniest things I've ever read. Have you ever actually used any closed-source device drivers?
In my experience, open-source drivers (whether reverse-engineered or done with vendor assistance) tend to kick the crap out of closed-source drivers. For example, my Acer box uses the nForce4 chipset. When I (briefly) had windows XP installed on this box, the proprietary drivers for the on-board ethernet were a steaming pile of unstable crap. I switched to Ubuntu and the reverse-engineered forcedeth driver has been working perfectly for me since. Likewise with a lot of TV tuner cards, which come with atrocious windows drivers/software, but many work fine with rev-eng'ed Linux drivers. And how about my Epson printer, which forces me to use awful hack-job Epson GUIs under windows, but "just works" with the Epson CUPS drivers.
The reasons are pretty simple: hardware vendors make their money by selling hardware, and they'll ship it out the door with pretty much any pathetic excuse for a driver. Subsequently, they have little incentive to keep maintaining and improving the drivers. By contrast, once an open-source driver is released, it will keep getting improved by interested and capable parties. By and large, the people who reverse-engineer hardware or write FLOSS drivers tend to actually *use* it, and they tend to put a lot of thought and talent into it.
1.) If I programmed it, it's my code. I, and nobody else, decides what happens to it. If I GPL it and you take it and close it again or release it with whatever licence you fancy, your generally considered breaking the law.
2.) If your doing it with all rights and laws in sight, you're a proactive criminal. Plain and simple.
3.) Amongst OSS developers, you talk to one another and resolve the issue of code 'theft' as real professionals do: without whining or bickering. The teams people involved in the, most probably, involuntarly code theft get briefed on licences and keeping an eye open, the original coders dual licence it for that specific purpose or help recode by giving the 'thieves' some air and time to clean up their project. In the end a few jokes BSD numbsculls and Linux whiners go back and forth and all ends well.
4.) If you don't get the above three points and start ranting on top of that, you are, as it's generally called in the OSS community, a prime class idi*t. Spare us your baseless ranting.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Perhaps someone doesn't agree with the goals of the FSF yet still believes in community. Some of their work they have no problem giving away. Other products of their work they may consider quite valuable due to the amount of expertise and time required to develop it and it's uniqueness. There are many pieces of software that would be very valuable to many people, yet no single person could reasonably pay the development cost. As such amortizing the cost across thousand of users makes a lot of sense. The FSF disagrees.
What? That is some strange logic that says "if you don't want people us to change your license, you should use our license."
As to why a BSD instead of a GPL license: Maybe someone is just generous enough that they want people to use their software regardless of whether they are paying the original author back. Or maybe they like free software but aren't interested in crazy, meaningless, pseudo-activist, junior-politician software bureaucracy. Or perhaps the development was developed with public tax monies. As such everyone should have the right to use the code in whatever fashion they desire. It would be crazily unfair to force someone to pay for the development of a competing product.
The moral of the story is "Write your own goddamned code". Note that this applies to *everybody*. BSD, stop using GPL'd code. GPL, stop using BSD'd code. Fuck Theo. Fuck Marcus. Fuck Michael. Fuck Bruce. Everyone should just do their own fucking work.
It's a very dark ride.
I would certainly not call it grand strategy, but come on. He wrote half the messages in the email thread, nearly every one of which ignored the actual copying of code, instead attacking the way the real authors of the code handled the situation. Clearly he wants people to look at how the complaint was made rather than what it is people are complaining about.
The fact that this is childish behavior just confirms it. This is the original "Follow my rules or I'm going to go play by myself." The whole OpenBSD project started when he couldn't get his way with NetBSD.
I hear you, but tragically, very few other people here are going to. Witness the fact that your post has been modded down to a point which almost ensures that very few people will read it. The FSF/GPL advocates here do that on a routine basis whenever something is said that deviates from their beliefs.
Something you're possibly already aware of is that there are a number of people who advocate both Linux and the GPL who are trying to create a scenario where these are the only forms of FOSS that exist. The entire rationale behind what drives these people is fear and hatred of groups that are in any way different from themselves...and the ultimate source of all of this bile is Richard Stallman. Most of the individuals associated with Linux who also behave in this manner are simply following his lead. He compulsively fears, hates, and seeks to destroy that which he does not have control over, and so those who follow him follow his example. It's pretty simple.
I find myself wondering what the future of the BSDs is going to be like, at this point...one thing I do suspect is that Linux users are going to start trying harder from here on to ensure that there actually *isn't* a future for the BSDs at all.
I find it regrettable that Michael decided to go so public with this (indeed, as others pointed out, it could probably have been solved privately) - you are wrong. It was absolutely necessary to make sure that everyone knew about this for at least two (2) good reasons. First reason is to make sure that nobody downloaded the code from the cvs and used it for further coding assuming it was licensed under BSD. Second reason is to provide a valuable lesson that nothing goes unnoticed and that mistakes of this kind (stripping other people's copyrights and licenses from code, and I personally cannot imagine how this could be ruled a mistake,) would not be repeated by others.
You can't handle the truth.
Really? I read him as being defensive of his contributors. Like a thinking, caring supervisor would. There's no question it could have been handled better. The very public airing of the violation was almost certainly intended to hurt rather than help. Theo made that point.
Every time something like this comes up, I hear a lot of "Theo is an asshole", but then I read the messages involved and I fail to see the assholery. He seems to be smart, articulate and protective of his project--as I'd expect him to be. About 70% of this bruhaha is juvenile "Linux vs. BSD" cockfights.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Cripple fight!!!
Some paper thin skins round here.
the biggest problem - as I understand it, at least (if I understand incorrectly, then I guess the people who advocate them have more work to do to educate the masses), is this..
With a BSD license, I can include a piece of open source code in my project, compile it, release it in any which way I want, and be done with it. I *can* contribute back if I change any of the code in that open source code, but it is not required of me.
With a GPL license, if I include a piece of open source code in my project, compile it, and release it in any which way I want, I...
- need to make not only the original open source code available
- but also the source code of my entire project
- whether I make changes to the open source code or not
The only other license that is a mix of both, is the LGPL, where I can use the source code in my project as long as it compiles to its own library (say, a DLL on Windows), and I tap into that library. I still have to release the source code to that library, including any changes I make to it, but my entire project doesn't automatically become GPL.
Given that libraries aren't always possible, and that not too many developers choose LGPL (it's mostly either GPL or BSD - dozens of other flavors to suit authors' specific demands notwithstanding), BSD code - for many developers - is 'better'... to that developer, not to the end-user, per se. Though one may always think otherwise: http://lwn.net/2001/0301/a/rms-ov-license.php3
Really. Cite an example. The FSF is extremely strict about copyright with the possible exception of debian they are the strictest group around.
Speaking as one of the ones who reverse engineered the driver: yes, we guessed a lot. However, the Broadcom code is terrible. I remember, at one point, the code was doing insertion sort of a list of structs. There were 128 of the structs and they were about 256 bytes each. They were moving around the *entire structs* when they were sorting, rather than keeping a list of pointers that they moved around. What's worse is that they were doing this under a spinlock! Yes, you read that right. They were running a O(n^2) sorting algorithm on 32KB of data under a spinlock.
That's just one example. There were plenty of others.
The way Mr. de Raadt treats other human beings is simply abusive, and there is no external factor than can explain his behavior in any fashion that would justify coddling it.
To me it is utterly laughable, when I consider how juvenile, dictatorial, and abusive they themselves are on a routine basis, that the denizens of Slashdot feel that they have any justification whatsoever in turning around and complaining about Theo's supposed lack of a personality.
I really don't feel that anyone within the Linux community has any business calling anyone *else* socially disabled at all.
Some people on the site are not good at interacting socially.
-> All people on the site are not good at interacting socially.
-> Criticism of anyone's social abilities, no matter how poor, is invalid.
Is that about the size of it? Speaking of laughing, I must admit I am laughing too . . .
In my experience, Theo is always an inhuman asshole and should be the LAST person to expect politeness from anyone.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
1) Theo de Raadt behaved like a troll in this discussion. No really. If you read the thread, he is the one heating the discussion up. I would say that Rueschs original mail was typical german style. That does not make it better, since he wrote it in English; nevertheless de Raadt did his best to provoke him further. I can not understand how this can happen. The first mail was four days ago, and only two days later, the BSD driver maintainer dropped the development of the driver. Sorry guys, if i take this behaviour as a measure for you professionality i am not sure that your excellent programming skills outweight it.
a different discussion style would have been:
a) Ruesch send an e-mail, not an list-post
b) The Maintainer removes the code puts the log message to the list that there are copyright issues with Ruesch - NOT that he removes the code because Ruesch attacked him. (The latter means that he would be fine with this behaviour). This would have also been the appropriate reaction to the first message, even if it was on a list
c) De Raadt comments shortly that he will discuss this issue with both and agrees with the driver being removed from the repository - NOT that Ruesch is the bad guy because his code was stolen. His task would have been to cool the situation, not to drive Ruesch into arguments really making a further dialog impossible.
2) The BSD drivers author states clearly that it was intentional. "To make quick progess" in nice, but honestly, not an excuse. Also if you want to do so, do it in you own sandbox or your private repository. Even that would in a very strict interpretation violate the cleanroom implementation rules. However it would be enough not to raise such problems.
3) Theo de Raadts stream of though "we are all open source developers - thanks for slowing us down" which i see as a connotation to some of his mail is really stupid. It is HIS personal opinion that the BSD lisense is as good as the GPL. He may think whatever he likes. If i own something it is after all my decision how to use it. You may call me egoistic if i use it for personal gain. You may call me stupid if i dont make profit of it. But nobody is a bad guy because he insists that he put something under the GPL.
As far as I understand, a copyright on the code will not prevent anyone from looking at it, and using the ideas in the code to write closed-source drivers. He would need to get a patent to protect from that possibility.
Regarding the nForce4 on Windows, were you using the "ActiveArmor" firewall? That's a piece of shit. I have yet to see it work properly and it often causes major problems. Without it installed, just using the base network driver, neither I nor two of my roommates nor my next door neighbor have had even a tiny bit of trouble with our nF4 networking under any OS. We're all using Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboards with either the current stable or latest beta chipset drivers.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
Dear Theo:
I've never heard of you before, but have broadcom wireless in my HP laptops. You forgot to say in that thread, that we stole the linux code and are sorry and will not use it anymore. Duh. This won't get me to ever look at OpenBSD now that is for sure.
Based on how I felt when I was a programmer for an engineering office, I would say Theo is embarrased and wanted to cover his arse and is mad at the person who spoke the truth. I used to pretend to the managers that my program was perfect, and the users were so happy with it, that they would praise it and I was happy. Then when a bug came up, I would always keep it quiet and patch it right away. I never wanted it to get to the managers.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:32(King James Version)
Okay, the users of GPL code would be developers. I know, wrong word, my bad.
Corrected, my point stands....the GPL places restrictions on developers by telling them that "if you want to use this code, you have to play by our rules".
Yeah, but if there's code that's GPLed, I can't put it in any programs without making licensing those programs under the GPL. Or, am I wrong?
So, this means, as a code monkey, I can't put GPL code into the programs I write for my employer.
Sure there is. My company won't let me use GPL code because we can't give our product away for free. My paycheck has to come from somewhere...like sales of software.
:(){
You can use GPLd code as much as you want without incurring any obligations. There are no restrictions on use.
You can distribute GPLd code in any manner you like, including selling it.
You can include GPLd code in your own product and sell the results.
What you may not do is distribute (for free or for money) GPLd code under a license apart from the GPL without permission from the copyright holder. That may not work for your company, but the line I quoted is imprecise about your rights and potential obligations.
how to invest, a novice's guide
and completely humourless?
I am not arguing against the BSD licences. That is the choice of copyright holder. And not a bad choice.
I am just saying that since you picked a license that lets your code be used everywhere, in Mac OSX, Windows, etc, then don't complain if it is used in a GPL project.
What a crock of shit! Only BSD developers love to code? Linux is driven by a hatred of Microsoft? Fuck you too.
You look in my posting history, you'll see I use GPL for a lot of my work. That's not because I fear Microsoft, it's because I want to get paid if a company wants to take my code. But I code anyway because I like to, I've got specific needs that aren't met by what I find out there so I start my own projects to get there.
But then I get to code that I don't care about getting paid for, or I want to use both inside and outside of work. That stuff is a gift: I license it public domain. I see no point in licensing code BSD when public domain is already well understood and out there. If you want credit, just make sure you have a web site and stick your project on your resume.
There are a lot of things that the FSF have done that I continue to feel outraged about, but polluting the original motivation behind open source has to be one of the very worst.
That's pretty rich, what are you smoking so we can get some?
The motivation has ALWAYS been about writing code. For some developers, they want to get paid too so they use GPL; others don't care or don't need to get paid, so they use BSD; still others use one of the many other existing OSS licenses for their own reasons.
You want to be pissed at FSF, fine, go write a compiler suite while you're at it. You want to be pissed at the thousands of developers who (shock!) love to write code but don't already agree with you, then too fucking bad for you. You want to argue about some ideological license purity bullshit? Then why the fuck are you using the BSD license instead of just leaving it in public domain?
Don't like my profanity? Tough shit. You say profane ideas, you get a profane response.
This mountain out of a mole hill is just plain stupid. The GPL developer should have pointed out the infraction and allowed the BSD guy to pull the code. It doesn't sound like that was an option.
The issue here is not some public rant or who did what to whom, it's the application of copyleft on a project that doesn't want it. The corporate world is not going to like this because this is exactly what MS and others have been saying would happen with free sw. I'll make the prediction now that Ballmer will use this event to hurt both GPL and BSD.
What a world. A driver developer for some obscure hardware doesn't want another driver developer to use his software because the hardware developers might end up using it. I don't know what to think about that except maybe hubris on the original developers part. I doubt the hardware developers care much because -ding-ding-ding- they don't sell software.
No good can come of all this copyright and software patent bs. There have only been 3 original lines of code ever written. Since then, it's all been stolen.
I hate to reply to my own comment, but to have an opinion moderated as "Flamebait" because it challenges the Free Software Foundation in a respectful way seems extreme.
I agree the GPL is a great tool to prevent fragmentation of major projects like gcc and the Linux kernel; but I think it should not be dogmatically applied to all Open Source software. A recent addition to TFA shows the GPLers may not be the saints they claim to be. I also think the OpenBSD developer was disrespectful and arguably in violation of the GPL.
I think most Open Source types are on the same side. I like Stallman because of his brilliant invention of Emacs on the PDP-10, even though it's before a lot of you "flamers" were out of diapers; otherwise we're stuck Bill Joy's vi, ugh.
You probably swapped User-Agent ;)
Sounds like Theo could use a good moderator to preview and edit his communications.
Any voluteers to be his PA?
--
Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.
I'm sorry, but I cannot agree with you on this. The way Mr. de Raadt treats other human beings is simply abusive, and there is no external factor than can explain his behavior in any fashion that would justify coddling it.
./ers are like everyone else--they will go to great lengths to rationalize the abberant behavior of one of their own. I wonder how many of the de Raadt apologists would extend the same grace to someone like Ann Coulter, especially with her indefensible "faggot" remark about John Edwards.
The reaction to de Raadt's temper tantrum just goes to show that
The fact is that the more one identifies with another person, the more they will engage in mental gymnastics to excuse bad behavior.
First, let me say that I am totally shattered and disappointed. I am doing work in both the Linux and BSD communities, and this is by far one of the most destructive flamewar I have ever witnessed. It will be hard to repair the damage done... This is very sad.
It's only fair to note that while there has been lots of stupid flaming on the OpenBSD side as usual, the linux bcw developers, while trying to appear rather nice and careful on the public mailing lists, where laughing their asses off about the whole thing behind the scenes in their IRC channel. They didn't exactly try hard to keep things peaceful either.
http://bcm-specs.sipsolutions.net/irc-logs/bcm-sphttp://bcm-specs.sipsolutions.net/irc-logs/bcm-sp
http://bcm-specs.sipsolutions.net/irc-logs/bcm-sp
http://bcm-specs.sipsolutions.net/irc-logs/bcm-sp
Some quotes, the first one actually shows the igniting spark. Others show how people enjoyed watching the flames.I find it disgusting that some people seemed to enjoy watching an already brittle relationship between two deeply related communities fall into pieces. Do they also throw stones at public demonstrations and then go home to watch the riots on telly?
Michael, please see my comment here: http://bsd.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=229865&cid =18654497
It takes two sides for a fight, always.
As long as the license is respected, then usage is no problem. The problem comes with the wankers who think that compatible means they can strip the original copyright notice and license, or just copy out subsets of the original code, and redistribute it with only the GPL license.
I am trying to understand your post in terms of the GPL, which is a license. As far as I can tell, if I take GPL code, and then line by line replace it with 'my own' code I am producing a derivative work. Even if I replace all of the original lines, or functions, or units of source, the work I produce would be derivative and subject to the GPL. It may be hard to prove that I used the original source, but it would in fact be a violation of the GPL. Do you disagree?
Theo complains for Michael taking their spat public, and then Theo blows it up into such a flame war that every nerd on ./ (and I mean all of you except me) knows that Marcus Glocker claims credit for code he didn't write, and Theo de Raadt is a completely irrational jerk.
/. and will show up very highly in Google searches on your names for years to come. I'm sure one of you isn't worried about that.
Theo wanted to keep it quiet? Well, sir, I applaud you! I bet you've also been working for peace in the Middle East! You're only real fault was having this appear on the front page on the weekend.
Geeks have long memories. Marcus, Michael and Theo, your roles in all of this will not be long forgotten, especially since this thread on
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
I think the original message calling out the code problem was not the most polite or discreet, but it was not a direct attack. It really was a rather straight-forward message. And Theo really took the wrong approach. He's being way over-defensive. When you work around legal licenses and issues resulting from those licenses you can't afford to be defensive and see a notice of problems at an attack. Theo's response, I think, has really harmed the BSD community. Rather than calling for a little patience and calm in dealing with the situation and asking for some time to sort thinks out he immediately raised his hackles and started growling.
Is the BSD community getting a little too insular? Is that what's going on? Maybe they are insecure about the wide attention Linux gets and the restrictions GPLed code puts on their own work. At the same time, Theo's response was inappropriate. And while Marcus did pull the driver code, he likely didn't over the initial email. The resulting exchange probably had a greater role in pushing him out, and Theo was just as much a part of that as Michael.
I'm not sure I'd ever want to contribute work to a project with a figurehead as negatively reactive as Theo.
It's sad that almost everyone in either camp suffers from tunnel vision and just can't see how much each community is interconnected. GPL code, BSD licensed code and proprietary code need each other to grow and thrive. One can certainly imagine worlds where only one exists, but that's more like a North Korean nightmare.
Clearly, those contributing GPL code to the world are well within their right to insist that their license is respected. The BSD people have a more laissez-tomber attitude; they don't seem to care / worry too much about copyrights, as it is most important to them to produce what they (and not only they) consider great software. They don't care too much about who owns what, and they probably feel, on balance, that this is justified by them contributing more code than they "take" (and even when they "take", it's only to give back).
Now I would agree that their (bsd) response was over the top and seemingly unwarranted. Theo has lost an opportunity to be the pacifist, restrained leader that Linus has almost always managed to be - I use "almost" because not too long ago Linus himself was seen as being one-sided in coming strongly against Gnome. Theo's call, his vocation is to write good software. He may not see PR work as necessary or pleasant, but I would speculate that he'd rather hire that nice motherly woman that Bruce dreams about rather than becoming one himself - if only he had the money, that is.
But there is a long way from here to vilifing Theo for being Theo. I've never met him, but I saw his interview on the former ROBtv. He appeared as "cheerfully communist" as Craig in front of the Wall Street crowd, and he struggled to make the business reporter understand how he makes a living by giving away his work. The very fact of being impassioned about his project diqualifies him from accusations of Asperger or autism. Furthermore, accusing him of "social ineptitude" for ignoring a handshake seems more like ad hominem than constructive criticism. Is it not hypocritical to publicly chastise him for overreacting by actually overreacting to his overreaction? :)
"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that ones work is terribly important." -BRussell
Paraphrase (with accurate chronology):
Michael (in public):
The OpenBSD BCM driver contains GPL'd code. Here are 12 examples of code copied verbatim from our source tree.
Theo (also in public):
Are you saying you want Marcus to quit? Why did you CC so many people?
Stefano:
This is a major GPL violation. We just want it resolved. We'd love to see a clean OpenBSD BCM driver!
Theo:
Why are you trying to drag Marcus through the mud? Do you want him to quit?
Joseph:
Theo, Michael CC'd us because we're part of the BCM reversing team. Can we help you clean the driver up?
Theo:
So you think Marcus should quit?!
Joseph:
No, we just said the opposite.
Theo:
And I ask again, do you see any reason why this whole rant accusing Marcus of copyright violations should have landed in your mailbox?
Michael:
Theo, we don't want you guys to give up! Just work with us to clean up the licensing status of the code!
Theo:
You're too late. Marcus quit. Are you not human? Are you surprised?
Michael:
Little bit, yeah. This was a major GPL violation, and it doesn't seem like an accident. Why are you arguing about it?
Theo:
Why are you still calling Marcus a thief?
Frankly, I have a hard time seeing how Marcus could be so thin-skinned as to be hurt by a GPL challenge, and yet somehow work on the same team as Theo. Presumably, Marcus never actually talked to Theo. It's all for the best, then. Marcus will be happier someplace else.
On the flipside, there's how FreeBSD handled it when it was found that someone removed copyright notices from their code and threw it into the Linux kernel:
"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."
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Theo and friends got shown off as what they are; petty thieves
I think that's too strong. Theo's response was classic displacement and he really needs to get over that... but it sure looks like the original commits of this code were a mistake rather than a deliberate attempt to break the GPL, and that Theo was not aware that GPL code had been committed to the repository until after the fact.
While this might be literally true when the applicable license is the GPL, your words could confuse many readers about the grounds for copyright infringement. It actually happens through the exercise of any of these rights that are restricted only to the copyright holder, to the extent that they aren't granted by the license:
1. the right to reproduce (copy),
2. the right to create derivative works of the original work,
3. the right to sell, lease, or rent copies of the work to the public,
4. the right to perform the work publicly (if the work is a literary, musical, dramatic, choreographic, pantomime, motion picture, or other audiovisual work), and
5. the right to display the work publicly (if the work is a literary, musical, dramatic, choreographic, pantomime, pictorial, graphic, sculptural, motion picture, or other audiovisual work).[3]
That's from Wikipedia.
Although GPL would grant you the right to reproduce in general, many non-GPL works do not even grant you the right to make copies for personal use without distribution.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
It takes two sides for a fight, always.
Yeah, and it takes two people for a rape to happen. Fucktard.If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Retard. Yes, you are indeed.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Excellent! You've just totally proven my point. My point being that this whole thing got blown out of proportion by people who are incapable of seeing things from more than one angle. And if faced with another one they resort to snapping, trolling, and spouting irrelevant insults at complete strangers on the internet. And there's a variance that enjoys watching these trolls at work, and encourages them to keep the flames coming. It's people like that who made this a big fight between the Linux and BSD communities, no matter whether their religion is GPL or BSD or whatever. I am active in both communities, and there are a lot of people on either side I look up to, but you, sir, are not one of them, because you are disturbing both my communities. Just go away.
Something you're possibly already aware of is that there are a number of people who advocate both Linux and the GPL who are trying to create a scenario where these are the only forms of FOSS that exist. The entire rationale behind what drives these people is fear and hatred of groups that are in any way different from themselves...and the ultimate source of all of this bile is Richard Stallman. Most of the individuals associated with Linux who also behave in this manner are simply following his lead. He compulsively fears, hates, and seeks to destroy that which he does not have control over, and so those who follow him follow his example. It's pretty simple.
The things you are ranting about are simply not important enough to justify the level of fear and paranoia you are exhibiting. There is no conspiracy to destroy you and your friends in order to prevent them spreading the gospel of BSD. Richard Stallman is not following you wherever you go. Linus Torvalds is not hiding in your crawl space and reading your thoughts. There is no need to scream like a girl whenever a penguin appears on TV.
It is extremely important that you do not kill anybody in order to defend the BSD license. It is highly unlikely that the courts would be sympathetic.
The things you are ranting about are simply not important enough to justify the level of fear and paranoia you are exhibiting.
;)
Granted, I am exhibiting fear and paranoia, but I see a lot of that on here from the pro-GPL side of the fence, as well. I'm curious...is it justified when they exhibit it?
That's a lovely completely subjective summary.
It seems like most of these arguments devolve to "yeah, well, Theo is an asshole, so he deserves whatever he gets." Which is neither productive nor logical.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
There are apparent moral inconsistencies but not where you were looking.
I am against copying without permission of open-source code, but I have no moral problem with copying of closed-source software, for example.
The reason is that my objection is not because of copyright law being infringed on, but because I believe software should morally be free and copyrights should not apply to private individuals.
In an ideal world, from my perspective, copyright law would not apply to private individuals, and open-source code fits that. Closed-source software (or copyrighted-against-private-individuals music, as in your example) in itself is a great moral violation - and distributing it freely (even though it is illegal) is thus no problem - and even mitigates some of the moral problem of the copyright itself.
I hope that clears up the apparent inconsistency with regard to copyright law.
You sir, are a new low in Slashdot, which is quite an achievement.
Congratulations!
You can claim your New Slashdot Low prize at a Slashdot store near you.
I feel like I may be the one defending the great Satan here (Theo). But I will state a few things so no one jumps the gun to fast.
Theo doesn't really need defending. He quite capable of doing that himself. Theo is passionate. A trait most people don't have and others can't deal with. Theo dispute was that the issue was everyone who was cc on the inital email by Michael Buesch. The code dispute was brought up on a driver that didn't work. And the tone of the initial email was at the very least condescending.
Theo defended what he felt was an attack on one of his developers. Something Theo is rightly passionate about. Theo did not dispute the code was there. He does dispute who wrote the code. He did take personally to defending one of his developers. Good for him.
I have seen the posts in this thread by others including Bruce Perens: Oh? So, if I take my record collection and commit it to a public CVS repository, that's going to be OK with RIAA, then? :-)
Actually if I couldn't play any of the music because the code it was written in didn't work. I don't think anyone would really say anything except your files don't work and therefore suck. I think the RIAA would have a tough time winning a prosecution just because you had a bunch of files labeled as music files. That doesn't mean the RIAA wouldn't try and you would probably not be happy about it. Theo didn't seem happy about what was being done to one of his developers.
Again the initial tone and the number of people cc in Michael's letter was the problem.
Many of you have said that Theo was upset about being caught with GPL code in his CVS. Well isn't this how other developers get to make commits and corrections to code?(I may be wrong here don't be afraid to correct me I can take it) So a driver that doesn't work and is under development has some GPL code in it. Wouldn't one of the commits be to mention there is some GPL code in the drive that may need to be dealt with? (Instead of sending a harshly worded letter and cc the world on it?)
I am not a developer but I have to admit if I were I would want be one for OpenBSD because I know that I am going to work with people who strive to do the best and have someone who has their backs.
Wait, what? Public humiliation? Which person broke the law here again? Not only is it an excuse for public "humiliation" but the author had the right to serve a DMCA takedown notice over the whole thing. Where do you get off saying a professionally worded e-mail explaining the situation is unreasonable?
Let's work with an example here: Say someone is displaying your artwork in a public gallery with their name next to it, knowingly misleading visitors as to the source of said art. Do you privately contact them and ask nicely for them to stop doing so (after they've already proven your copyright means jack to them) or do you inform the gallery? You inform the gallery, of course. The fact that your work was copyrighted WAS the polite, private message of "please don't take this and claim it's your own".
This is a situation that needs to be remedied immediately. What if said person who "borrowed" your art allows the AP to photograph it? Now every newspaper in the world could (possibly) carry the image with the wrong attribution and suddenly the damages start growing out of control. So you inform the gallery and they pull the work until the ownership of said art can be confirmed. Otherwise you could spend the rest of your life tracking down your mis-attributed work.
In this case it's worse. If someone "borrowed" the publicly available (and wrongly) BSD licensed code and put it into a proprietary product, tracking down infringement would be impossible. A public notice was necessary so that anyone who had downloaded said code would know what license it was under. At the very least they should be warned that the code could cause their code to become GPL tainted.
In the end, your argument doesn't seem based on any reasonable view of reality.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
It's the OpenSSL license that forbids interoperability with the GPL. OpenSSH depends upon OpenSSL, so it's linked, but it wasn't a decision by the OpenBSD community to make OpenSSL so encumbered, and realistically, I suspect Theo isn't a big fan of the OpenSSL license any more than he is of the GPL.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
In my house, mood is not a factor. Anyone breaking in will simply be shot on sight until dead.
However, don't count on anything like this ever making the TV news; it happens all the time, but never seems to be reported on the news. The media doesn't want people to get the idea that they can legally defend themselves from criminals.
People like to bitch and moan about their problems with their friends. That's not trolling.
... I actually think the discussions on that IRC channel is pretty civilized and not short of good intentions.
Considering that some people get pretty pissed when their copyright is violated (just think of academia, where people earn a living from their published papers)
This is NOT a sad day for Linux and the open source world.
The world needs to know that we care about copyrights, and that we will defend them.
Companies need to know that the GPL is a solid license, not only intended for garage hobbyists (as some might want the world to believe).
"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."
You would think that, but many companies (due to internal politics) lack good internal communication, support and teamwork between groups.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
The GPL is an easy way to license your copyrighted works. So the GPL has nothing to do with wether your code can be considered a derivative work of something else. But IF your code is a derivative of code you are using under the GPL, then you need to follow the terms of the license, or lose the right to distribute the software.
You deserved the down-moderation you got since I saw this comment. Slashdot denizens are not a homogeneous group. It is intellectually lazy to classify them all together in the manner you did. I would presume that the people you were castigating for throwing stones aren't the ones living in glass houses unless you can site specific examples to the contrary.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
But YOU are the one who made this mistake public, who CCd two mailing lists, and the GNU license violation squad... and then laughed about it on IRC! You knew Theo is a loose cannon, yet you made sure he would react publicly.
As I've said elsewhere, if your neighbor's dog shit on your petunias, your reaction would be to write a nice polite note, and then send copies of it to several newspapers and a major legal firm.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
only to the injured party?
I've used and admired OpenBSD for *years*, and, by extension, its developers. But it really is clear that DeRaadt was wrong here.
The first response is analogous to "You OVERREACTED and committed a (minor) faux pas YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE !!! NEVER OVERREACT YOU INHUMAN "
Kinda odd to excuse that. Weirdly inconsistent.