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Maybe it is sort of over reacting, but if the developers accept their (GPL'ed) code to be taken and relicensed as BSD, the next step is the code to be taken and possibly be used in proprietary projects.

Maybe it is sort of over reacting, but if the developers accept their (GPL'ed) code to be taken and relicensed as BSD, the next step is the code to be taken and possibly be used in proprietary projects.

Drivers should be public domain ONLY.

And *then* exactly then, you can bash him to death. But before that you can talk and like you see,they have deleted it at once.

As he wrote in the mail: He doesn't want Broadcom, who aren't cooperating with the OSS community at all, to profit from their work. If OpenBSD were allowed to re-release the code under a BSD license, Broadcom could use the work to improve their own drivers for Windows and OS X, while still not cooperating with the OSS community.

He doesn't want Broadcom, who aren't cooperating with the OSS community at all, to profit from their work. If OpenBSD were allowed to re-release the code under a BSD license, Broadcom could use the work to improve their own drivers for Windows and OS X, while still not cooperating with the OSS community.

Rewording this sentence as I see it:

We, GPL people, won't allow Broadcom to make better drivers for Windows and OSX.

This is the nastiest philosophical difference between BSD and GPL style licenses. BSD code is written to be benfitting anyone (including users of propieritary products); GPL code is meant for GPL camp only.
I understand (and respect) GPL ideology and I'm not against using it for standalone applications, but for drivers it is not the best license. Like noted above by someone - drivers need to be in public domain.

No, this isn't about keeping out OS X and Windows, it's about not letting Broadcom take your work. Anyone can take the drivers and port them to Windows, as long as they are distributed according to the GPL. In essence, the GPL enforces the spirit of public domain through copyright.

Two reasons:

1) The IP theft was done publicly.
2) The devs for the linux-driver don't want Broadcom to create a proprietary driver based on their code.

However, the linux-driver-devs could have handled it less mean, but Theo de Raadt is just as mean.

The IP theft should not have happened in the beginning, the linux-bcw developers could have been nicer and so could Theo de Raadt.

Both parts agree that the IP theft was wrong and it will be resolved. And that's the important thing here.

I'm with Theo on this one. The best way to get licence compliance is to talk to someone privately first. Telling the world is the last step.

But I don't agree that "IP theft" happened. What was involved was copyright. Talking about copyright by using a blanket term is just adding confusion, and using a senseless blanket term such as "IP" is just being silly. The OpenBSD guy did not "thieve" any geographic designations, or plant varieties, or design schematics - which are all encompased by "IP" - he "thieved" copyright. Good article: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html

But I wouldn't use the word "theft" either. If I steel your lunch, then you will be hungry in the afternoon and I could understand you being unhappy. If I copied your lunch while your back was turned, you would be none the wiser or thinner.

"Theft" and violation of copyright are two very different things. Each can be wrong in various circumstances, but the two should not be confused.

>However, the linux-driver-devs could have handled it less mean, but Theo de Raadt is just as mean.

Theo isn't equal to Marcus, they have no dictatorship in OpenBSD. If you're thinking of that, you have to handle Linus the same, he too has *leadership* in the kernel development, but it isn' dictatorship! And Linus too uses some harsh words (look at Gnome e.g. or FreeBSD, interface-nazis and idiots) ....

I love it when you are talking about IP theft. You are among the same people who will say Microsoft should not charge licensing fee to open their protocols which is their IP.

You will be the same person who will be against patents:)

It is funny to see double standards all around in GPL world.

BSD world is where i live and it is heaven there...

Well, ronaldst, copyright is just as important to the OSS community as it is to Microsoft, SCO, and the rest of the proprietary software industry. These seemingly minor issues are a really big deal. It's a shame that OSS developers have to worry about intellectual property, but the law says that the code that we write is valuable, and that by default, nobody but the original author can distribute it.

For many developers, this isn't how we want it to work, so we have to carefully waive many of our rights without giving up what remains important to us. What's important to one developer may not be important to another. But just because we waive some of our rights in the interest of collaboration doesn't mean that we have given up all of our rights. If anything, the fact that we waive so many of our rights might even make us more protective of the rights we reserve. We didn't just reserve these rights because the law granted them to us, we reserved them because they're important to us.

In this case, the crux of the issue is that an OpenBSD developer copied portions of a driver that had been licensed by some Linux developers under terms that that are important to them and committed the code to a project that is distributed under different terms that don't reflect the values that are important to the original developers. They did so without asking permission and without warning. He didn't want to "taint" the OpenBSD kernel with GPL code, so he decided to take the liberty of relicensing it to reflect the preferences of the OpenBSD developers.

Did the Linux developers respond in the kindest of all possible ways? No. But I don't think they should have felt compelled to handle this privately with the developer in question either. They were right to post to the OpenBSD mailing list, but the itemized list of evidence showing the widespread copying was unnecessary in the initial disclosure. They should have simply posted saying that they have identified possible copyright issues in the OpenBSD bcw driver and would like to work with their community to resolve them.

If the OpenBSD folks would prefer to handle the details of this situation in private (for whatever reason), then they should be allowed to arrange for such correspondence. Unless a potential security exposure is involved, the development mailing list is almost always the proper forum for initiating a dialog with a community project. Otherwise, too frequently you never get a response from the individuals who are supposedly the right ones to contact.

Jesus, some over-reacting GPL boys, it's opensource!

No. Taking GPLed code and putting it under another incompatible license is just plain wrong - and obviously wrong at that.

Why not mail the guy and talk to him? Why "discuss" this mumbo jumbo first in public?

The code is in a public repository, mailing lists are the place to talk about this and the issue is quite serious. Surely, Marcus Glocker knew what the implications were?

It seems as though Theo de Raddt just didn't grok the seriousness of that in his e-mail exchange. He starts talking about how he thinks OpenBSD has the cleanest codebase around (right....), it's OK because the driver doesn't run yet (OK......) and it will be resolved in the tree......somehow. He then goes on to talk about it as infighting between two groups, which it isn't. Relicensing GPLed code under another, incompatible license, is just a huge violation.

There's then a bizarre comment he puts on the end in response to Stefano Brivio at then end of another comment to trivialise copyright and license issues, in response to how the code had been copied verbatim with whitespace and variable names intact:

"Copyrighted whitespaces and variable names, you mean, right?"

Well yes, Theo. That's why we have these things called licenses.

I officially own the copyright to the variables i, j, k. As well as any and all white space.

Everyone is in violation.

Now then, shall we procede with that ridiculous arguement?

To clarify though, it appears as if there were actual copied functions, apparently as place holders while he was writting something for himself, according to
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.wireless.general/1647

It could have EASILY been commited to CVS by mistake. Now then back to the real issue of why was there no private email saying "could you please remove the gpl'd code" first. No, not even close. They went straight for public humiliation.

Edited 2007-04-06 15:39