Author Topic: The free stealing from the free  (Read 1651 times)

Offline W1nTry

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The free stealing from the free
« on: April 05, 2007, 01:53:46 PM »
Umm... ouch that was my foot I shot....
Quote
Open Source coders caught stealing Open Source code

Penguins tell OpenBSD to make its own driver

By Gijs Hillenius: Thursday 05 April 2007, 13:50
DEVELOPERS OF OpenBSD took code from their brethren at Linux, violating the code's licence, the GPL. To the horror of the Linux folk, the OpenBSD licence allows proprietary use.

The Linux coders went to great pains to reverse engineer Broadcom's wireless chipset. The company's hardware is found in many wireless devices, but Broadcom shuns open source.

To avoid all legal difficulties, the Linux developers split themselves in two strictly independent teams. One group studied Broadcom's Windows driver and compiled a nearly perfect technical specification. This was used by the second team to develop a GPL'ed Linux driver, the bcm43xx.

Far less scrupulous, the OpenBSD developers seem to have simply copied bits of that GPL code into their own driver, bcw, published under the BSD licence.

Michael Buesch, lead developer for the Linux driver, stumbled across the copied code in the bcw earlier this week. Yesterday he sent a stern email to the developers at OpenBSD, copying in the bcm43xx developers mailing list here.

Buesch writes there are details in the OpenBSD driver that are clearly taken from the Linux version. "We made great efforts to keep our code clean of any copyright issues. Please make sure you also do."

According to Buesch, the Linux driver was published under the GPL specifically to avoid proprietary vendors from using their work to publish closed source drivers.

Theo de Raadt, OpenBSD's project leader, told Buesch he should stop doing Broadcom's work.

"Because of a few GPL issues you are willing to use very strong words, disrupting the efforts of one guy who is trying to do things for the BSD community. You did not privately mail that developer. You basically went public with it."


*SLAPS FOREHEAD*
That'll be our job, Theo. µ

Carigamers

The free stealing from the free
« on: April 05, 2007, 01:53:46 PM »

Offline disciple

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Re: The free stealing from the free
« Reply #1 on: April 07, 2007, 03:00:16 PM »
hmm.. i was reading up on this the other day,didn know their was a post on it here..

basically, theo de raadt ( open bsd man) is pretty abrasive, drama-queenish and pigheaded.. but he does have a point..     i think the bcm43xx (linux, gpl) cats handled it very poorly.. they shoulda contact him ( marcus, the bsd bcw driver developer) and give him a chance to explain himself BEFORE flaming the man up on a public mailing list,for the whole intarweb to see...
.. if after they approach the man, the man moving like a louse, yeh.. by all means.. BLAZE


i would like to believe his version of events.. that he used the code at points to help in his development process, but never meant it to be redistributed, or committed to his final product..  .. he simply took a shortcut by using some of their functions and worked on coding others that he could have..., and forgot to remove when he sent it to be approved.. ..sloppy, yes.... 

 now, how it got left in the final code is a big issue..and open bsd needs to review their process...

but i doh think he set out to steal thier code..  reason being, since is open source, is open for review by everyone.... this aint some obscure thing like a touchpad driver .. is wireless.. broadcom's wireless set is all over d place, and notoriously troublesome.. heck, thas what i rocking right now...........       

 whatever he submit WILL be looked at, poked, and prodded by everyone.. especially the dudes over at similar projects, like bcm43xx.. so he couldnt have possibly gotten away with blatant theft..

bcm43xx have all valid points in bringing it to his attention.. not the least of which is that bcm's licensing ( either bsd, or some very permissive license) would make it okay for broadcom to snap up their work, and legally include it in their own implementation..and they want NONE of that.. totally valid.. suspected code theft..valid reason to be up in arms..  but in the spirit of humanity, pull the man aside and ask him.. what's up with this?..   if he move left, or if u doh like his answer.. as i said, cast real fire on him..       from what i understand it may have a lot to do with another bsd member's refusal to license his work under a gpl license... so it may be a tit for tat, you blank us, we shame you kinda scene..

open source gains a big black eye.. and the linux camp has another reason to dislike the bsd camp ( as if ideological differences on licensing is not enough)

again, there's still more to the story than what i read, i am sure..
#406745

Carigamers

Re: The free stealing from the free
« Reply #1 on: April 07, 2007, 03:00:16 PM »

 


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