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- diggapleaze, on 10/12/2007, -15/+129Theo de Raadt: "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."
How the hell was Buesch supposed to know it was only one guy? If they have a public mailing list, that implies that at least more than one person is involved. How is the official mailing list *not* the most appropriate place to discuss a GPL violation?
Theo needs to just admit that somebody on the openbsd team made a mistake and stop attacking the guy for bringing attention to the fact that there is a clear violation. The Linux devs spent months cleanroom reverse engineering that driver specifically to avoid things like copyright violation. Imagine if a commercial company came by and started using the OpenBSD code, assuming it was OK, and then later suing the Linux devs for copyright violation! The humanity! There is a *reason* these GPL violations have to made public for everyone to see. - Gudlyf, on 10/12/2007, -10/+74Nobody -- I mean NOBODY -- deserves the hellish treatment De Raadt throws upon people. I'm sick of hearing people defend his aggressive attitude while people blindly call him a "great guy". It's been near a decade of him insulting people and throwing his ponytail politics around like his ***** doesn't stink, and I'm quite frankly done with it.
I used to spend money on OpenBSD. One day I tried to kindly point out a bug in its ypbind code, and De Raadt jumped down my throat quicker than beer down a funneling frat boy. I was trying to help, and what was De Raadt's response? "Remove my code from all of your systems IMMEDIATELY."
He may be a genius in many peoples' eyes, but that doesn't make him any less of an a-hole. I did just as he suggested and removed OpenBSD from every system I own, and I'll never look back as long as that dirtbag is associated with it. - hijinks, on 10/12/2007, -2/+43easy .. you don't give the credit where deserved for the work you took. As a open source developer myself, I write code so others can freely have it, use it and learn from it.
I would get upset if someone called my work their own - funk49, on 10/12/2007, -9/+48The way this turned out is sadly predictable. While OpenBSD is an outstanding product that I love to use, Theo is an ass. He always has been and always will be. The devs of the GPL'd BCM driver should have known how this would turn out. I would be willing to bet Theo would have been confrontational if it would have been in private.
The bottom line is this...if you have an issue with OpenBSD that can potentially be made public, expect a huge fight. This is why Theo always fights to keep the public bugs out of the category of "remote exploits by default". For more info, see the recent fight about having the IPv6 bug classified as a "remote hole". - argoff, on 10/12/2007, -3/+42@fyngyrz
"If it's free, it will NOT have "GPL" or "BSD" or any other license pasted all over it."
AARGH ..... RMS TRIED THAT ! He wrote code, released it to the public domain, and a software company coppied it and modified it enough to put it under a new closed license. Basically meaning that RMS could be sued or criminalized for using the very code that he wrote. That's why he got a lawer and drafted the GPL for all his future code. In truth, we would be much better off if there were no copyrights at all - market pressures would eventually make everyone to show the source code anyhow, but until then the GPL is the best there is. - diggduggjoe, on 10/12/2007, -6/+43The only problem with the quiet solution you prefer is that other developers may have already scored the code and are in process of making proprietary drivers from it. This transgression must be publicly conveyed, if only, to have a public record that the code is GPL and that any current projects from that code must be GPL, also.
I have found some of the BSD crowd to look upon Linux as the unwanted stepchild of Unix and unworthy of its current status. Ripping off a linux driver should be quickly taken care of by Theo for it is wrong, plain as day. To claim that it should have been done with less public channels only downplays the risk of the offending code propagating. - diggapleaze, on 10/12/2007, -5/+33here's an update not covered in the story:
*Michael Buesch response*
So, I am suggestion three options:
> >>
>> 1. You give me some time and I try to rewrite the code
> >> in question. We keep in touch, and maybe we can split
> >> up both parties in freedom afterwards.
> >>
> >> 2. Same as option one, but if my time resources keep
> >> shrinking like they do right now, spending weekends
> >> in the office and I can't fix up the driver soon,
> >> I'll drop the driver.
> >>
> >> 3. We don't come to a point and I'll plain drop the driver
> >> directly, very soon.
> >
> > 4. bcm43xx people review the driver and think about relicensing
> > (parts of) bcw, so you don't have to rewrite it.
> > We don't want to distrurb bcw development, but we don't like
> > the harsh way of taking code without permission and asking
> > for permission afterwards.
> > If you want to have more code relicensed, please ask on a
> > case-by-case base _before_ importing it into bcw.
****END
The openBSD devs in charge of the decision didn't go with 1-4, they instead decided to just delete the offending code, despite the fact that "IMO, deleting the offending code was, in this case not the optimum path to have traveled, particularly since bsd needs that code. There are a couple dozen boatloads of machines out there using this chipset. Including a lappy I bought a year ago." ( http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.drivers.bcm54xx.devel/4084 ) - cjwl, on 10/12/2007, -4/+30diggapleaze said: "Imagine if a commercial company came by and started using the OpenBSD code, assuming it was OK, and then later suing the Linux devs for copyright violation! The humanity! There is a *reason* these GPL violations have to made public for everyone to see"
The BSD license, the GPL and pretty much all open/free licenses have clauses in them which provide absolutely no warranty of non-infringement, so any company which uses open/free source thinking they have code which is not infringing is not doing their homework. The integrity of the project is usually a good metric for how non-infringing the code is to begin with but is absolutely no guarantee that it doesn't. OpenBSD lost credibility with this blatant copying and the really poor response, they should have asked for it to be relicensed or not used it. Linux gained credibility here with the clean room effort. - schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -12/+38Scumball?? Hell no. He pressures companies to give us some clues that enable even the Linux kernel to get better hardware support.
- mikelieman, on 10/12/2007, -9/+35"He and "his people" are some of the most respected developers in modern computing history."
I don't respect him or "his people" very much after learning about how they conduct themselves. If Theo has a problem with being called out publicly for his-people's blatant disregard for other people's rights to their intellectual property, then he should have been on the ball, reviewing this stuff prior to it's inclusion.
He let it in. They're Crooks. They were OFFERED a generous settlement by the Lawful holder of the IP rights, and instead threw a hissy-fit.
Very Bad Form, I must say... - baalzebub, on 10/12/2007, -8/+34why steal GPLed code?, i thought the BSDs could use GPLed code as long as they kept it under the GPL and also made the source code modifications available too along with credit to the origional authors...
that would be like stealing balloons on free balloon day :) - diggduggjoe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22I disagree. Open source means that you can look at the code, not claim it as your own. It is still a copyrighted work and you must abide by any licenseing that is applicable. In this case, the GPL is in full force. No one has the right to relicense the work without the consent of the author, unless that is part of the original license. That is the big difference between the GPL and the BSD worlds.
- diggapleaze, on 10/12/2007, -36/+56He is not scumball. He and "his people" are some of the most respected developers in modern computing history. You may disagree with his response (as do I) but don't start insulting one of the most important people in opensource and arguably the MOST important person in computing security in the world. Theo has strong principles and deserves respect for that. On top of that he is a great guy, if not somewhat aggressively vocal.
You, on the other hand, deserve no respect. Welcome to my block list. - Fordi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19Mailing him privately wouldn't inform those who have picked up the existing tree of the bcm driver that the driver is legally tainted. Marcus' mistake was bigger than using GPL'ed code; he distributed it on a CVS tree. If he had *intended* to rewrite the damned code first, he should have done so before he posted to CVS. Posting it to CVS first was irresponsible.
- Fordi, on 10/12/2007, -4/+21@fyngyrz:
I will state only that your ideal is not in line with reality. That is all. - Niten, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Unlike userland utilities in OpenBSD that are distributed under the GPL, a driver needs to be linked with the kernel in order to be used. Since the kernel is under a BSD-style license, linking this driver into the kernel would violate the driver's GPL license.
- Niten, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15Part of the issue is that the Linux bcm43xx team had come up with a unique solution to an implementation hurdle, which, according to some reverse engineers, works better than the method chosen by Broadcom itself for their official Windows driver. If this driver were relicensed under a BSD-style license, then Broadcom would be free to copy the bcm43xx code into its own driver, benefiting from the hard work of people to whom they refused to provide even a useful product specification.
That said, the bcm43xx team did offer to relicense certain parts of the driver for BSD, on a case-by-case basis. Theo and crew were too busy trying to play the victim to take Michael and the others up on this rather generous offer. I love OpenBSD, but Theo really made an ass of himself here. - XenonofArcticus, on 10/12/2007, -9/+23BSDs cannot use GPLed code any more than Microsoft can (except by following the GPL's restrictions, which are more restrictive than either Microsoft or OpenBSD want to abide by).
Marcus did a dumb thing by using GPL code. Maybe he really only meant to use it temporarily and replace it later but mistakenly checked it in that way. Maybe not. Maybe it doesn't matter, you could say that is still a spirit-of-the-law violation even if it wasn't letter-of-the-law. However, when he checked it in, it did become letter of the law (distribution without attribution, and under a different incompatible license, without permission). So, it was a bad and dumb thing to do.
Michael then, obviously upset (probably partially because the OpenBSD crowd and the Linux crowd are antagonistic to each other due to each other's fervent and incompatible license views) took the matter very public and very confrontational. It probably would have gone better if it had been done privately. Michael was within his rights, but it didn't help the situation.
Now everyone is upset, Marcus and OpenBSD are perceived as horrible thieves, Michael and the Linux crowd look arrogant and pushing for a fight. Nobody ends up looking too good, and the progress of free Broadcom driver (and other projects that Linux and OpenBSD coders might collaborate on) has been set back. Somewhere, Bill Gates is laughing gleefully.
The boon and bane of the Open Source movement is the pride that its members put into their work. - tehkain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15You sit have no idea what you are talking about. For one its the GPL vs the BSD license. Th GPL promotes freedom thru assured freedom down the line in other apps that use the same code. While the BSD license can be used by corporate companies in proprietary code. You see if you take GPLed work then put it under a bsd license then a company can just snatch the hard earned work of person number one.
As for 'no one gives a rats ass' well your entirely wrong. The majority of the internet's structure is running on open source software. So obviously someone cares. - DoubtfulSalmon, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18"He and "his people" are some of the most respected developers in modern computing history."
Respected by who exactly? Sure, they've come up with a decent operating system, but they never quite got around to actually GROWING UP.
I learned long ago that no matter how incredibly good you are at something, people will only tolerate your ***** attitude to a certain extent. One day you'll push it too far, and the people who feed you will say "I don't care how much we need your skillz, your attitude sucks. Bye".
It seems like for about as long as I can remember, every time OpenBSD hits the news it's because Theo De Raadt is being an ***** to someone.
To be honest, I don't know what the rest of the OpenBSD team is like... but there's another rule of life for that situation: if you hang around with *****, people will assume you're an ***** too.
Wouldn't it be funny if one day someone forked OpenBSD... didn't make a single code change, just changed the name and the attitudes! Call it NiceBSD perhaps! - mikelieman, on 10/12/2007, -8/+20The words you're looking for are "Had a temper tantrum".
See it all the time in my 3 year old daughter. - dinkumator, on 10/12/2007, -5/+16This is just sad to me.
Full postings are here: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.wireless.general/1558
in a nutshell, Buesch's copyright was violated, very blatantly. Raadt resorts to name calling and inflammatory remarks. Buesch maintains his composure pretty well I'd say, considering, and Raadt just sounds like a 12 year old. - beguiledfoil, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Shh, war has been declared! This is no time for Rationale!
- Charron, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13This reads kinda like a nerd's Onion headline, doesn't it?
- stable, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10@ fyngyrz
> When is "free software" not free? Answer: When it has a license.
If it didn't have a distribution license (GPL in this particular case), the copyright (which is present by default unless stated otherwise) would prevent it from being distributed, so don't blame the license when its only purpose is to give you distribution rights. - bob12321, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Well I guess not you.
- smkndrkn, on 10/12/2007, -21/+30Theo is an *****...always has been. ***** him ;)
- mipadi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10No, it's the other way around, basically: A GPL program can safely use BSD code, but any code that links to a GPL module must also be GPL'ed, so a BSD project cannot utilize GPL code directly.
- agimat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Reading that thread, i can't help but think that those two must have been married to each other at some point.
- dport113, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13Theo pulled the openssh card out, again.
- dthomas53, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10@diggduggjoe
I do see your point regarding publicizing the violation. However, your findings regarding how BSD "look upon Linux as the unwanted stepchild of Unix and unworthy of its current status" is asinine. By casually using the term "BSD crowd", you are (indirectly?) including all BSD-related projects in this affair; FreeBSD has nothing to do with this, NetBSD has nothing to do with this, and DragonFly BSD has nothing to do with this. You shouldn't speak so generally.
And Theo *is* an ass, his personality is apparent and there aren't many that can successfully dispute this. But...OpenBSD code is great (OpenSSH is about all I need to say), FreeBSD code is great (ZFS is now in FreeBSD...someday maybe Linux?), and NetBSD code is great (has had Xen support for a *long* time). Don't dismiss BSD simply because you are ignorant to it and because Linux dominates the headlines; I work for an ISP and can confidently say FreeBSD has large presence in the server domain.
This has been said before (and sadly it continues to need reiteration): the team is "FOSS", not "BSD" or "Linux". - Fordi, on 10/12/2007, -8/+16Seemed like the lazy, pussy move to make to me. Ask for relicensing, ninny. The bcm devs are relatively cool guys, and for most things, they'd probably be amenable.
It just sounds like this Marcus guy didn't want to face the prospect of rewriting the more difficult sections of code, so he ripped off some GPL'ed stuff. When they called him on it, he just gave up. Asshat. - Jonty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Can we be clear on what both licenses entail? GPL has a copyleft clause which means it can't be used in unfree software and therefore cannot be licensed under the BSD license as that would mean it could be. However, BSD code can pretty much be used anywhere as long as you retain copyright notices, which is how the BSD network stack ended up in Windows.
What's more, there's no point in dual-licensing under the GPL and BSD license as the BSD license gives you the freedom to license the code under the GPL. - zhulien, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8stolen? so it's not in the possession of the original owner? load of BS, the licence agreement was not adheared to, it wasn't stolen
- generalloy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Of course GPL software is free software. Look at the four freedoms one day, and you''ll see why: it protects user's and developer's rights with the four freedoms and prevents companies from taking their free software, and making it non-free or proprietary. That said, I hope this doesn't turn into a GPL vs BSD thread. They both have different aims, and the Free Software Foundation classifies BSD as a free software license which is compatible with the GPL.
- widman, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11Why don't you read the thread and not that pathetic biased article. They admit it was a mistake to commit that code. But the code wasn't near working or release state yet! The driver was in development.
This is a continuation on harassment from Linux wireless developers and users towards OpenBSD. Read the thread. They keep provoking the OpenBSD developers to dual license their code. There are original drivers on BSD the Linux wireless developers just don't want to even rewrite, something the BSD camp has to do always.
Theo overreacted like a schoolgirl, but that doesn't mean he was completely wrong. - Cbeck527, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10spongebob references FTW!
- tehmoth, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8diggaplease: can you read? The mistake was acknowledged and corrected, it was never denied.
- prammy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The BSD license allows for that copying. Credits etc are maintained.
If you read through the entire thing, then you would know that the linux wireless devs had no problem relicensing some parts of that code under BSD so that BSD could benefit as well. But instead of working out an agreement, Theo decided to go on the warpath.
In essence they did the 'I'm taking my toys and going home' routine. - straxus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Are you free to enslave other people? Of course not. But by taking away your freedom to enslave others, there is a net gain of freedom in the world.
That's the purpose of the GPL. By taking away the freedom to close the source code, there is a net increase of free/open software. - Fordi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6So a BCM driver for BSD (a discreet project) would be GPL'ed. So the ***** what?
- flibuste, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11Theo de Raadt is an idiot who can't even admit someone in his team made a mistake. Instead of trying to correct the situation, he goes on in accusing the driver developers of making too much noise about something they really shouldn't have done.
I would hate having such a project manager. - generalloy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Stanley: copyright means that only the owner can use the code or gain money from it. Everything in the US is copyrighted whenever it's created and some think this leads to too much knowledge lost, or in the computer world, proprietary software. You might want to compare a typical EULA's restrictions to a free software license's open-ness, and I think you'll find your argument doesn't make any sense. But make no mistake, it's not public domain software--the GPL relies on copyright to preserve the freedom of it's users (although RMS would like to see the copyright terms dramatically reduced from oh a century or so, to something normal.)
Now, "open source" software and "free software" are two different things-- the former basically came about in 1998 when people were thinking of how to sell free software to the business world, and it can kind of be summed up as basically free software with the morality washed out.
BSD licensed software is free, but companies can make it proprietary or non-free. GPL software is free and will always be free. - UKsHaDoW, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Its has to do with putting GPL in BSD code that is the problem. Not giving credit.
No one can really say thats there code in under GPL.
The problem is any company could use that code and put it in a closed source app now because its under the BSD.
I've never given credit when using GPL code. I just release my modifications under the GPL again. So there code + my code is still under the GPL open source liscence. - shm1, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10I deployed OpenBSD on a pre-production machine but went with FreeBSD after hearing about Theo's behaviour. Who does he think he is? Balmer?
- Felshadow, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Regardless, even if they had no license, the Linux boys would still be angry because they did steal their code,
by your reasoning, i could steal someones song but if its not licensed he wouldn't care? - thushan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/bcm43xx-dev/2007-April/004359.html:
"I, Michael Buesch, am one of the maintainers of the GPL'd Linux
wireless LAN driver for the Broadcom chip (bcm43xx).
The Copyright holders of bcm43xx (which includes me) want to talk
to you, OpenBSD bcw developers, about possible GPL license and therefore
Copyright violations in your bcw driver.
We believe that you might have directly copied code
out of bcm43xx (licensed under GPL v2), without our explicit permission,
into bcw (licensed under BSD license).
There are implementation details in bcm43xx that appear exactly
the same in bcw. These implementation details clearly don't come
from the open specifications at bcm-specs.sipsolutions.net
or bcm-v4.sipsolutions.net.
We have always made and still make a great effort to keep our code clean
of any Copyright issues (cleanroom design). Please make sure you also do.
A few examples follow of what we think might be GPL violations.
This list is far from being complete.
BCW_PHY_STACKSAVE()
BCW_ILT_STACKSAVE()
bcw_stack_save()
bcw_stack_restore()
These functions are a possible implementation of the specs when
they say "backup/restore a value".
Yet, it looks like you had exactly the same idea implementing this
generic description that I had.
bcw_set_opmode()
This function does not appear in the specifications.
I think Jiri Benc wrote it initially (and gave it its name) and
I extended it.
bcw_leds_switch_all()
is not in the specs, but a pure implementation detail of bcm43xx.
bcw_sprom_read()
This is obviously copied. Even the error message string is similiar.
bcw_phy_calc_loopback_gain()
I think it's no coincidence that you also decided to name the backup
variables like
uint16_t backup_phy[15];
uint16_t backup_radio[3];
uint16_t backup_bband;
bcw_phy_init_pctl()
uint16_t saved_batt = 0, saved_ratt = 0, saved_txctl1 = 0;
int must_reset_txpower = 0;
bcw_phy_xmitpower()
Attenuation adjustment algorithms (while loops).
bcw_phy_lo_g_state()
This exactly matches bcm43xx, although the specs only have an abstract
description and diagram of the state machine.
bcw_phy_lo_g_deviation_subval()
/* XXX bcm43xx_voluntary_preempt() ? */
Nice comment there.
You might want to grep bcw for the string "bcm43xx"
and you will find more of them.
... and all the rest.
We'd like to have this issue resolved.
In general we are not against having a free (and BSD licensed) driver
in the BSD operating system. But you _have_ to cooperate with us if you'd
like to take our code and relicense it under BSD license. We intentionally
put the code under GPL license. We did _not_ do this, because "everybody
does this". We did this, among other reasons, because we
[citing Michael, Mon, 26 Dec 2005 13:03:44 +0100]
"don't think we should allow proprietary vendors to take our code
and close it again."
[citing Michael, Date unknown]
"What if Broadcom decides to take our LO measure state machine and
put it into the original driver? (The Rev Engineers told me they have
a very different weird solution for this in their code).
I really don't want to see this happen."
We'd like to offer you to start cooperating with us.
We respect you and your Copyright. You should also do so on our work.
We would not be opposed to relicensing parts of our code under the BSD
license on an explicit case-by-case base.
So if you ask "May I use this and that function" and if I own the
Copyright on that particular function, I will approve or deny your request.
Other Copyright holders of the bcm43xx code might act the same way.
We're not out for blood, just for a fair resolution.
We'd like you to start contacting us to resolve the issue now.
Have a nice day.
--
Greetings Michael." - wageslaven, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Open Source != Free Software. Look it up.
BTW, Captain Apple Fan: OSX is a fork of FreeBSD. FreeBSD is a BSD licensed Unix. The *ONLY* reason (IMHO) that OSX is built on UNIX is because doing an ENTIRE ground up OS project would have bankrupted apple and/or failed.
So, every time you turn on your white-plastic-cased-object-of-lust, thank the years and years of effort by the Open Source community at BOTH *BSD and GNU/Linux. - latova, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8@fyngyrz: Don't like it? Go release your own license-less software. You are aware of course, thats exactly how linux started. Go make your own operating system and do the same. If you don't like the way things are, quit bitching and go spend thousands of hours developing your own software, and give it out without a license.
- elipabst, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12@gudlyf I used to spend money on OpenBSD.
Yeah, I think I'm done spending money on OpenBSD after this. Especially after hearing how Theo was such a ***** to the MadWifi dev for basically the same thing. It one thing to be principled, it's another thing to just be a dick. -
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