Busy busy busybox [LWN.net]

Busy busy busybox

Posted Oct 2, 2006 4:05 UTC (Mon) by bug1 (subscriber, #7097)
In reply to: Busy busy busybox by sepreece
Parent article: Busy busy busybox

In Rob's post he states that the SFLC advised that "... a strict reading of the GPLv2 apparently requires preserving old license notices even when they don't apply ..."

I believe that if a file is currently is GPLv2 or later, for example.

And you add a GPLv2 only patch you would have to make it

Its the same with BSD, if you use GPL compatable BSD code you still need to mention the BSD licence and copyright.

For a file to be distributable it has to comply with all licences, its not dual licenced where you can pick any one of them.

I never understood what the big deal was about mentioning both, if the new project leader goes down the same path as Rob then i suspect the problems that lead him to resign will not have been adressed.

Disclaimer: IANAL and was involved in this mess, i had emailed SFLC about this myself (CC'ed Rob and Bruce) and recieved no response from SFLC.

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Busy busy busybox

Posted Oct 2, 2006 19:38 UTC (Mon) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link]

The problem that led me to resign was simply that it was no fun anymore.
The licensing debate was already over (and Denis is continuing the GPLv2
only policy for the next release). I saw that through, and it's done.
The wording of the notices is a silly technicality that has no real
impact: new releases (and the individual files in them) are GPLv2. If
you want to use code under GPLv3, you can grab any of the old releases.

Partly I was exhausted. Partly I was disgusted at Bruce taking credit
for my work. But mostly? It just stopped being fun.

Rob

Busy busy busybox

Posted Oct 4, 2006 8:17 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

Well, I'm sorry that you decided to walk off of the project, but having walked off of projects myself, I understand and hope you get a rest.

I was distressed that you wrote about "seeing my laughing face when you looked at the code". I am not laughing at you. I didn't think of this dispute as a personal thing, just proper license procedure and the future potential of the program.

You also wrote that I did not invent the multi-call binary technique. I didn't claim to. But it doesn't come from gzip. I started working with C and Unix in 1981 at the NYIT Computer Graphics Lab, and the technique was in use at that time. My original work on Busybox was to provide 35 commands, mostly written by me, working from the Debian man pages.

Bruce