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Resolution of BSD-GPL Wireless Code Dispute?

Posted by kdawson on from the can't-we-all-just-get-along dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The highly publicized debate between Theo de Raadt and the Software Freedom Law Center seems to have come to an amicable end. SFLC has published its research on the lineage of the ath5k driver and determined who owns which changes. In the end, everyone agreed to license their modifications to the Linux driver under the BSD license, and OpenBSD developers can now reincorporate those improvements into the original code (with the exception of one historically GPL-licensed branch)." The article notes that Theo de Raadt has not responded publicly to this development but that comments on the issue in an OpenBSD Journal forum have been generally positive.

3 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. Um, is this a "resolution" at all? by Estanislao+Mart�nez · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ok, they are indeed announcing that supposed changes by the Linux Wireless folks involved in this dispute will be released under a dual GPL or ISC license. But the last time I heard about this dispute, Reyk and Theo's most pressing claim was that the Linux Wireless developers in question illegally put their own copyright and license notices on work that they did not own; i.e., their position is that the Linux Wireless folks, in more than one instance, hadn't done enough original work for their release to qualify as a derived work of Reyk's code.

    I don't see anything in TFA that directly addresses this. There is a link to a new document about originality requirements under the law (which I haven't read yet, I'll admit), but I would hope that this issue was addressed explicitly.

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  2. Oh, I found it. by Estanislao+Mart�nez · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Reading quickly, the real meat of this is code analysis document, where the SFLC seems to argue, contrary to Theo and Reyk, that the files with the added copyright notices do qualify for derived work. (Still reading it.)

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  3. Another observation. by Estanislao+Mart�nez · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The SLFC's document about originality requirements spends nearly all of its time citing USA court decisions, whereas any action would be brought in Germany, not the USA. Yes, the very last section of the document (section 7) handwaves away this critical issue, by saying that we can use American copyright law as a guideline as to whether requirements of E.C. copyright law are met.

    IANAL, but isn't this a pretty bad idea?

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